It was a familiar scene at First Niagara Center on Monday night (March 2) as Niagara-Wheatfield took the ice to battle Williamsville North in the large school division championship.

It is the fourth straight year that the two teams have met and the fifth time in seven years that they have played at the arena as part of Super Sunday, with the Falcons edging the Spartans every single time.

This year was supposed to be different though, as Wheatfield had to replace 14 players from last year. This was supposed to be the year that the streak finally came to an end.

Enter Garrett Downie.

The junior forward who did not even make the varsity team last year put on the performance of his life on the biggest stage as he scored four goals and added an assist to help Niagara-Wheatfield once again defeated Williamsville North 6-4 to win its fourth straight Section VI championship.

“We have a great (junior varsity) program with two strong coaches and they get guys ready coming up,” said Niagara-Wheatfield head coach Rick Wrazin. “We are very fortunate to get the turnover that we have when we lose those guys. The guys that have been here do a great job of teaching the new guys the work ethic and what it takes to win a tight hockey game and a championship.”

Anyone who has followed the rivalry over the years predicted that this would most likely be a tight game, similar to the pair of 1-0 wins that the Falcons pulled out on Williamsville North earlier this year.

Oddly enough, both goals scored in the two previous games came very early in the contest, so when Downie took a pass from Andrew Logar and slid it past Nick Stafford less than four minutes into the game it felt like déjà vu — and then the scoring exploded.

Less than five minutes later Downie jumped an errant pass by Kyle Wilk and walked right in on Stafford to go up 2-0.

As per the name, the Spartans would not give up with Adam Batz cutting the lead back to one 22 seconds later, and Matt Terrance tying the game early in the second period.

Downie, however, got the hat trick midway through the second as he once again capitalized on a one-on-one situation with Stafford on a feed from Dakota Becker, who found him right in front of the net to put Niagara-Wheatfield back in front.

“I was just in the right spots and got the puck,” said Downie. “Everybody was just working hard.”

James Stenzel would put the Falcons up by two on an innocent looking shot from the point that was taken just to keep the puck in the zone, but got through.

Williamsville North started to build momentum late, though, and Terrance netted his second of the game with less than a minute to play in the second to cut the lead to 4-3.

The goal would cause Wrazin to pull Casey Wall in favor of Domenic Tallarico, but it was not because the senior wasn’t playing well. Wall stopped 18 of the 21 shots he faced in the game; it was just time to infuse some energy into the team.

“Last year we came into this game and they jumped on us by two early and we wound up coming back and winning,” said Wrazin. “When we were up by two, I said, ‘Don’t let this be a reversal of last year.’ When they got their third, they were getting a lot of momentum and I thought I had to do something to slow the game down a little bit. Any time you change the goalie it recharges the boys. Casey was playing a strong game.”

Things did not start out tremendously for Tallarico, either, because a shot from the point grazed off the back of Stenzel and went into the net to shockingly tie the game at 4-4 early in the third period.

“Obviously I wasn’t too happy about that but I knew we would bounce back,” said Stenzel. “We always keep the momentum and positive thoughts going.”

After that, Niagara-Wheatfield started to roll out its top line of Downie, Logar and Becker more frequently, and it paid off.

With less than five minutes to play, a Downie pass to Becker deflected right to Logar, who buried what turned out to be the game-winner.

“I think he wanted to pass to Becker and it came right to me,” said Logar. “Coach has been telling us to just get shots on the goalie so I shot it and it went in.”

Downie added an empty netter for good measure as he was voted the Most Valuable Player of the game.

Logar and Stenzel each finished with a goal and two assists apiece, while Tallarico came in and made 11 saves on 12 shots.

The win gives Niagara-Wheatfield five sectional titles in the seven years of the program’s existence, and now they look to take aim at a state championship.

The Falcons are slated to play Section V champion McQuaid for a chance to advance to states on Saturday (March 7) at Rochester Institute of Technology. Faceoff is scheduled for 8 p.m.