Williamsville North is 8-2-2. The Spartans haven’t lost since starting the season 0-2. They trail only St. Joe’s, whom they’ve defeated, in Division 1.
And Williamsville North coach Bob Rosen doesn’t think that his team has reached its full potential yet. This year’s team is something special, and Rosen has known this from the beginning, but he’s waiting for his players to realize how special this year’s team is.
“You could see it early on in practices,” Rosen said. “I don’t know if we’ve quite reached where our potential is yet. I don’t think we have. But there’s no question that they have something, and if I can make them realize what they have and all work together, we could do some special things.”
The players have started to realize it. In a 2-0 win over Clarence on Thursday night, both Derek Westbrook and Matt Terrance were quick to credit their linemates and the way they work together on the ice for their goals. And goaltender Jake Zurat, who needed just 17 saves for the shutout win, was happier with the win than the shutout and credited the defense for making his job easy.
Westbrook’s goal came 8:22 into the first and stood as the game winner in the shutout win.
“Matt Jeffries and Nick Tracy made an unbelievable play,” Westbrook said. “Nick gave me a great pass, and I just put it in the back of the net.”
Westbrook spent last season with the Buffalo Regals, and this year is his first on the Williamsville North varsity team. But he’s fit right in, and he couldn’t be happier.
“It’s awesome,” Westbrook said with a grin. “Playing with all your school buddies and playing with everybody — it’s awesome.”
Matt Terrance added an insurance goal 5:08 into the third — with a little help from his linemates, of course. Adam Batz and Nick Tracy assisted the goal.
“We mixed up the lines a little bit, so I ended up down there with Batzy [Adam Batz],” Terrance said. “He passed it over to me just like he just did there, except the other way around. We just have a knack for finding each other on the ice, and he did all the work, and I was just in the right spot and it worked out well.”
It wasn’t the game winner, but in his second full game back from a broken ankle, Terrance was happy to get back on the score sheet.
“I was struggling coming back from injury, so getting back on the score sheet was nice to do,” Terrance said. “I broke my ankle two weeks ago, so it’s nice to be back and just get on the score sheet. GWG’s will come later on.”
Behind them, Zurat stayed focused in net against a Clarence team that he expected to come in hard.
“They got a lot of good players; I personally know a couple of ’em,” Zurat said. “But I knew they were gonna get on us. It’s no team to look over. None of the teams in the league are anything to look over, so we gotta come focused — personally too.”
One of those Clarence players even let Zurat in on his game plan after the second period.
“They were shooting a lot of glove first,” Zurat said. “Azan [Dorsett] was coming in short side a lot, trying to go high glove; told me that in the second intermission too.”
But nothing worked for Clarence, and that was because of both Zurat’s performance and the defense in front of him.
“He’s been playing unbelievable,” Westbrook said of Zurat.
“I like the win better [than the shutout], but the team did great,” Zurat said. “I saw the puck really well from the points. They just played a simple game. They chipped the puck out, kept my job easy.”
“I think we were good in our own zone,” Rosen said. “A lot of their shots were from the perimeter. We didn’t give up much stuff close, and I was really happy with that and our defensive coverage.”
They know there’s still room for improvement, but the Spartans were excited and relieved to come away with a win especially after tying Orchard Park on Sunday night. With four league games left, they’ll work to play even better going into the playoffs.
“Another win,” Terrance said. “It’s good to bounce back, especially after tying Orchard Park Sunday night. It’s important to keep getting those wins and stringing them together. I think we kinda gotta play through, score a little bit more, because we haven’t been able to get more than two goals. So I think it was a good win but we still have more work to do … In the standings, it was good — gets us closer to solidifying first place going into the playoffs.”
Rosen is just doing what he can to show his team what it has that makes it such a special group and what it needs to do to take full advantage of the opportunity it has this season.
“You only get a few opportunities in life, and you don’t wanna let one slip away.”