After exploding for seven goals in its regular-season finale against Williamsville North on Feb. 11, Clarence’s hockey team entered its Large School quarterfinal against one of the perennial thorns in its side – Niagara Wheatfield – with some confidence.
Unfortunately for the Red Devils, Niagara Wheatfield’s goalie, who was more of a non-factor during Clarence’s recent regular-season win over the Falcons, showed up to play with his team’s season on the line Saturday, leading to their 3-0 victory that ended the Red Devils’ year.
“You can’t win if you don’t score, and quite simply, we couldn’t buy a goal Thursday night,” coach Rick Brooks said. “We skated pretty well and had some chances, but the shots on goal that we got from our pressure didn’t materialize into actual goals. Of the 25 shots we had on goal for the game, I’d say three to five of them were honestly good scoring chances. The rest were just shots into their goalie’s gut or his glove. We probably had another 10 shots or so that just missed the net. It was a consistent problem of ours all season.
“Our guys worked really hard this year, but we just didn’t have anyone who had a knack for scoring this year.”
One player that night who certainly had a knack for scoring was the Falcons’ Chris Caccitore, who finished the game with two goals – including an empty netter with 10 seconds to play – and an assist. Caccitore scored what would be the game winner in the second period when, after breaking in over the blue line, he fired a wrist shot that found its way past Matt Binkowski. Not even a minute later, a miscue on a deflection attempt in front of Binkowski found its way into the back of Clarence’s net to give the Falcons a 2-0 lead.
“Niagara Wheatfield definitely did a good job of controlling the front of the net and getting bodies on people,” Brooks said. “But Caccitore hurt us for sure. We were pretty confident going into the game, and if their goalie plays like he did two weeks ago maybe we win this game with them, too. But he did what he had to do this time to stop what we threw at him.”
North’s goalie had a much tougher time stopping what the Red Devils threw at him in the regular-season finale, as Clarence jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first period and added three additional goals in the third period to clinch the lopsided 7-2 win. Isaiah Corry took the wind out of North’s sails with his goal with 1:38 to play in the third period, and that set off a flurry of three goals in a 1:03 span to close out the game.
The line of Trevor Arno (3 goals), Nicholas Messuro (1 goal, 3 assists) and Nicholas Modeas (2 assists) was particularly effective for the victors, though Brooks also gave kudos to the team’s defense – including Binkowski, who had 32 saves in net – for helping secure the win. Anthony Sweeney and Alexander Sykas also scored goals for Clarence, while Adam Zaffram chipped in with two assists as well.
“We got a lot of opportunities on net against North and did a better job of finishing them,” Brooks said. “Our top line was connecting that night for sure, and it was just a great night for all of the kids, to be honest. North is a perennial contender in our league and has a great program history, so to beat them was a good accomplishment for us.”
Clarence finished the season 8-11-1 overall and is losing 12 players – including eight forwards on top of Binkowski, the long-time netminder – to graduation off this year’s squad.
“We’re definitely getting some younger kids back from this year’s team who’ll be a year stronger and more experienced, and there are four or five kids on JV right now who’ve been putting the puck in the back of the net, so hopefully they can continue to develop and stay on their current trajectory so that they can contribute at the varsity level next season as they mature and get bigger during the offseason,” Brooks said. “Last summer we tried to do a group workout program to teach the kids how to develop more as athletes, so we’ll look to do that again. But the biggest thing for us is finding some people who can score on a consistent basis.”
