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BY TIM IRVING
Penfield hockey defenseman Owen Fox celebrated his birthday on the ice.
Instead of the cake, Fox just went for the icing, scoring two goals including the game-winner in a 4-3 victory over Brighton/ER/HF-L in the Class A hockey semifinals at Webster Ice Arena.
The top seeded Patriots face number two Victor in Sunday’s final at SUNY Brockport.
The Bruins came into the game winners of 11 of their last 12 games. That only loss coming on February 5th to Penfield.
The Patriots spent most of the first three minutes in their defensive zone but that one foray into the other end proved to be fruitful as Sam Smock gave Penfield a 1-0 lead with his 14th goal of the season.
Goalie Dom Andrade, who has been money all season for the Patriots stopped a flurry of shots at one and and Ryan Hurwitz stopped a breakaway at the other midway through the first.
With 1:07 to play in the first period, Penfield set up in the Bruins end and Fox sent a wrister in from the point that found its way home and Penfield led 2-0.
“He’s a warrior. Third of three boys going through the program, just a fantastic young man and it comes from mom and dad, ” Patriots coach Nathan Miller said of his captain, who led Section V defenseman in scoring with 34 points during the regular season.
The first penalty of the game came in four minutes into the second period and Penfield took advantage of the power play opportunity, Sean Smith let loose a laser from the face-off circle.
Just 54 seconds later, HF-L senior Hayden Meehan got that back for the Bruins and and the Patriots’ lead was 3-1 heading to the third.
Where Brighton/ER/HF-L made their move.
On the Bruins’ first power play of the game two minutes into the third, Meehan sniped home a shot from the same circle Smith scored from and the lead was 3-2.
With under six minutes to play, on another power play, Peter Burslem’s shot was stopped by Andrade but Chance Bears knocked it in to equalize.
“They’ve been playing great hockey, very well coached, structure’s fantastic and I’ve gotta give kudos to those guys.” Miller said.
With under four minutes to play, the Bruins gave up a hooking penalty.
“The talk on the bench was, calm down, be poised, it’s the only way we’re gonna win, ” Fox said.
The senior cruised in from the the left point and fired a wrister the Hurwitz got a piece of put couldn’t prevent the puck from sneaking over the goal line.
With under two minutes left, the Bruins went for an extra skater and managed to prevent an empty netter but couldn’t get the equalizer past Andrade.
It was the second straight one-goal victory for Penfield (20-1-1), who needed overtime in the quarterfinals to eliminate eighth-seeded Fairport.
“We’ve got an incredibly resilient group, we knew they were gonna make a push at the end and thankful that we had enough left in the tank at the end to recoup and do what we needed to do to get through and advance, ” Miller said.
The finals will be the second time the Patriots and Blue Devils have played this year, the teams played to a 3-3 tie back on December 14th.
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