Earlier this season, one of Alex Bauer’s teammates described him as the heart and soul of the team. On Saturday, Bauer deferred the honor to defenseman Matt Canada, who made his return after missing several games with an injury.

“I think I said it earlier in the season, I’m more of an on-ice presence,” Bauer said. “Canada’s really the guy in the locker room getting the guys stoked and stuff. I just go out there and I do my thing on the ice, and just my physical presence out there is what helps us out.”

Bauer had missed the final regular season game as a precaution as well, and the return of the two players seemed to be the spark Niagara Wheatfield needed as the team defeated Frontier 5-1 to advance to Wednesday’s semifinals.

“I’ve played with the kid since I was like pre-K, so I love having him out there with me,” Bauer said. “It’s not the same without him.”

“It felt good,” Canada said, a big smile on his face. “Got the boys buzzed out there. The energy was there. Bauer banging on the boards, that was nice, so it felt good to be back.”

Bauer’s missed game was his first in four years on varsity.

“That was my first game I missed in four years,” Bauer said. “It killed me not playing, so it was good to be back out.”

Sophomore forward Nick Breier scored the first goal of the game late in the first period.

“It was nice, got the boys going,” Breier said. “Nice rebound from [Matt] Pawlak in front of the net. Just put it in. Pawlak did all the hard work; I just put it in.”

When Frontier’s Jake Watkins answered back 44 seconds later, Breier wasn’t worried.

“I just knew we had to come back in and bounce back like we always do,” Breier said.

Joe Torcasio answered with his first goal of the season shortly into the second period, and Garrett Downie and Chris Tobey added to the lead in the third period. Niagara Wheatfield scored once more with a minute and a half left in the game, and Cam Ruhland was credited with the goal, although it should have gone to Torcasio for his second power play goal of the game.

“Q [Torcasio], our defenseman, had two nice goals, so we knew we could rely on our captains to get us going because they’ve been here so many times,” Breier said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Torcasio said of the second goal. “It just felt good. The power play’s been working really good.”

That wasn’t all that worked well for Niagara Wheatfield in Saturday’s win.

“I think we moved the pucks quick,” Canada said. “One of our biggest things we talked about this week was we gotta bear down in front of our own net because we had struggled with that, and I think we cleaned up the front of our net well and then just got pucks out of our zone quick.”

“For our entire team, we just needed to get our energy up when we went out there and did it,” Bauer said. “We forechecked ’em and we had just an all around good game, going out there and playing the systems.”

Niagara Wheatfield had a season of ups and downs, but Bauer isn’t discouraged by any of it. All that matters, he said, is now.

“I think it’s the exact season that we wanted,” Bauer said. “We’re coming in, we’re on a roll right now. This is how it starts. Start with one game, take it one game at a time, and sooner or later you’ll be at the end and hopefully we’ll be leaving with a championship.”

“We definitely have had an ultimate goal since the beginning of the season, and now we’re one step closer,” Canada said.

Tonight, the Falcons hope to take the next step as they face off against Orchard Park at 8:30 pm.

“Two totally different teams,” said Torcasio of Frontier and Orchard Park. “Next one is gonna be a hard battle just like this one was. We work hard this next week of practice, and we’ll be ready for ’em.”

“We’re ready, you know, we’re just ready to go on,” said Breier. “Hope to go all the way.”