Williamsville North coach Bob Rosen had a feeling this year’s team was special. Now, the Spartans have a chance to continue to prove their coach right in tomorrow’s section final against rival Niagara Wheatfield.
The Spartans haven’t lost a league game since the first two games of the season. They tied Hamburg and Orchard Park each once, but still it seemed that nothing could stop the Spartans.
Not even Clarence’s hot goaltender, Jack Niesyty, who was coming off of his fourth shutout of the season when he faced North in Wednesday night’s large school semifinals.
But on Wednesday night, Williamsville North scored four times on Niesyty en route to a 4-2 win that carried the Spartans to tomorrow’s section final.
“It was a pretty close game last time we played them — two-nothing,” said North defenseman Kyle Wilk. “We expected them to definitely come out hard, but we were ready. We came out flying, and we got the job done … We just needed to stay calm, play our game like we’ve been playing the whole season — doing the little things right, chips off the glass, getting the puck up the ice — and it paid off.”
“Coming into the game, we knew we’d been scoring a lot, but we couldn’t beat Niesyty on Clarence,” said Jared Cummins, who scored the game-winning goal on Wednesday. “He’s been playing great lately, so the fact that we were able to take it from two-to-one to three-to-one was a huge goal for the team.”
Cummins’ goal gave North a 3-1 lead at the time, but Clarence’s Dylan Lock forced Cummins’ goal to be the game winner when Lock scored early in the third period.
Matt Terrance scored first for the Spartans though, with a goal assisted by Andrew Bruno and Wilk 6:25 into the first. The Spartans were only slightly nervous when Richy Felber tied the game for the Red Devils less than two minutes later.
“Whenever a team scores, you’re gonna be a little nervous, but we had a strong group of kids in there, and we knew that if we just played our game, we’d be fine,” Cummins said.
Josh Surowiec gave North the lead once more late in the first, and Cummins added to it late in the second. Matt Jeffries’ first Fed goal gave the Spartans some more insurance just 49 seconds after Cummins scored.
“It was great. I really sealed the deal right there. We probably could have used one more, but we ended up not needing it, so that was great,” Jeffries said. “It was kind of a funny play at the point, and Derek Westbrook just chipped the puck to the wall, and I just kinda relayed it to the net, and it just floated in.”
Lock’s late goal for Clarence did little to dispel the Spartans’ excitement.
“It was awesome,” Jeffries said. “The boys were buzzing. We got down in the first period, but then we finally battled back and got some goals and ended out the game.”
But as Rosen reminded his team after the game, there’s more work to do.
“He was proud of us, gave us a pat on the back, but said we’re not done yet,” Wilk said. “So we gotta go out there, start working hard over these next couple days, and get ready for Monday.”
“Monday’s huge,” Cummins said. “Obviously, we haven’t won in a while, so we just gotta bring our A game, and if we can get all four lines rolling, we should have no problem.”
And there’s no one the Spartans would like to beat more than Niagara Wheatfield on Monday. As luck would have it, the Falcons will be the opponent Monday at 4 pm when the Spartans hope to have their turn.
The last time the Spartans won the Section VI championship was in 2011. In the four years since then, it’s been Niagara Wheatfield.
“I’m actually kinda sick of seeing their name up on the section final title, so hopefully we can get a little bit of revenge this year and get that title,” said Wilk.