Williamsville North has just two league losses this season, and the last one came December 6 to Canisius. On Thursday night, the Spartans had a chance at redemption as they once again faced off against Canisius.
“We wanted to win so bad,” said Nick Tracy who scored the game-winning goal in Thursday’s 5-2 redemptive win. “Big test for our team; really a measuring stick game. They beat us real bad the first game, so we wanted to bring it to ’em this game. We know how well we can play. We had a good game today.”
“We haven’t lost a game in 10 games, I think, so the fact that we were able to come out and kind of get redemption was huge,” said Jared Cummins. “I know a ton of kids on the team [Canisius], so it was great finally to beat ’em for once.”
“We really wanted to beat them,” said Daniel Mosher, who scored twice in the win. “After that 4-1 loss at the start of the season, that really got us frustrated, so everything’s been building up to this. We’ve got nine wins and a tie in the last 10 games, so we’ve been rolling. It was a good win. Good team effort.”
The Spartans got off to a fast start when Mosher’s first goal came just 1:39 into the game. He scored again 25 seconds into the second period, and the two quick goals were a huge boost for North.
“It really helped us out, got us some confidence,” Mosher said. “After those first two goals, we just kept rolling after that, so it was really nice.”
But Mosher was quick to deflect the attention to his teammates who set up the goals, whether their contributions showed up on the score sheet or not.
“My first goal, Matt Jeffries did a really good job of getting a shot through, and I just got my stick on the puck and deflected it,” Mosher said. “Our coach tells us to get that high tip, so we were really working on that in practice, and it really helped out in the game. And on that second goal, at first [Tyler] Durfee did a really good job of cutting the guy off on the penalty kill, and Trigs [Anthony Trigilio] did a good job of getting it deep, and I just crashed the net and got the rebound and scored a goal. It was pretty nice; it was a good team effort.”
Tracy’s goal came just more than five minutes later, and at the time it gave North a 3-0 lead. For his goal to stand as the game winner, though, was the best way for Tracy to break out of a recent slump and regain his confidence.
“Personally, it was huge,” Tracy said. “I’ve been on a slump for the past lot of games — I don’t even know how many games at this point, but it was huge personally and for the team. So I’m just glad I could help out when I needed to.”
But Tracy was quick to credit a teammate as well.
“My goal, not much about me,” Tracy said. “It was a great play by Westbrook. The second effort on his part was huge; I was just there to put it in, so great effort by him.”
And then there was Jared Cummins. He didn’t score a goal in Thursday’s game; he didn’t even have an assist. But all head coach Bob Rosen could say afterwards was that Cummins played the best game of his varsity career.
“Just the maturity of winning battles down low,” Rosen explained. “He had no points and he’s one of our top scorers, but defensively doing the things we talk about, what championship teams do — some days you’re on, some days you’re not; scoring or not scoring. But winning battles down low, getting pucks out, all those things that good teams do, he did a really good job of tonight, and that was a big step forward for him as a hockey player. I just told him, it was his best game he’s played in four years for me.”
Cummins’ reaction? Of course, he too deflected the attention off of himself and onto his teammates, which is exactly the type of unselfish attitude that Rosen appreciates from Cummins as well as from the North team as a whole this season.
“Even though I personally didn’t have a lot of points, my line played great,” Cummins said. “I thought we, as a team, worked the puck great down low. And whatever I can do to get pucks in deep or get it to the net, as long as I help my team win, that’s all that matters.”
Matt Terrance added an insurance goal a few minutes after Tracy’s goal, which gave the Spartans some breathing room when Canisius came out strong in the third period, and North lacked some of the intensity from the first and second.
“We just got a little loose,” Mosher said. “Even in the locker room, we were a little loose, and we knew we would get the win, but everyone just shut down for a shift. But we just came back and kept fighting and just got pucks deep, and we did a good job of finishing it.”
“We just didn’t come out with the intensity level that we had in the first and second,” said Tracy. “We knew we had to come out with it; we just didn’t. We were kinda flat.”
A Zach Kurbiel empty netter sealed the win with 33 seconds left in the third, and the Spartans knew they had their redemption.
“Once Kurbiel got that last empty net goal, it really solidified it,” Mosher said. “And everyone was really happy and cheering on the bench, and a big thing is the guys that didn’t play much this game really stayed in there and gave us a lot of confidence cheering us on and stuff, which was really nice.”
Right after the win, the North players were already thinking about their next challenge: Sunday’s game against Orchard Park. The Spartans’ other league loss came to OP, and Sunday will again be a chance to redeem and prove themselves.
“We want to keep the effort level that we had in the first and second period but bring it into the third too,” Tracy said. “They’re a fast team; we gotta stay on them the whole game, even in the third period. We gotta keep pushing.”
“We got a big game Sunday against Orchard Park, so to carry all this momentum into that, it should really help us out a lot,” Cummins said. “We only have two league losses, Orchard Park and Canisius, so if we can beat Orchard Park, it’s one more team to check off the list.”