By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
The hockey coaching staff at Victor High School has preached a culture of family for years.
Be fully invested in one another and good things will happen; the five Section V championship blocks from the past eight years – along with a state championship in 2018 – are proof.
“Our kids care so much for each other,” coach Mike Ferreri said. “They care more about a teammate’s success than their own.”
Which is why, when the Blue Devils face the giants of Section V and beyond, they’re ready for the challenge, as Orchard Park, the state’s only unbeaten team, found out on Saturday afternoon in the Division 1 regional playoff.
The Blue Devils (20-2-2) were outplayed for more than half the game, producing just one real scoring chance through 26 minutes, yet when the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard read Victor 3, Orchard Park 1.
“We’re pretty much bulletproof when we’re a family,” said senior forward Colin McNamara, who scored the first and third goals and assisted on the game-winner by freshman forward Simon Kowal. “We knew we’d get the job done eventually.”
In handing the Quakers (20-1) their only loss, Victor earned a berth in the state Division 1 semifinals. The Blue Devils play West Genesee (20-3), a 7-0 winner over Ithaca in the regionals, at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at the LECOM Harborcenter in downtown Buffalo.
“I’m just so happy for these kids,” Ferreri said.
In 2020, Victor won the regional but the state tournament was called off because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Two years ago, we were going (to states) and it got canceled on us and that was hard, so we have some unfinished business,” McNamara said.
The spark for Victor on Saturday afternoon actually didn’t come until after Orchard Park took a 1-0 lead. Quakers top scorer Michael Robertson capped slick tic-tac-toe-trouble four-way passing to score a backdoor goal on a power play at 9:46 of the second period.
At that point, the Blue Devil had just three shots on goal “and two were from the red line,” Ferreri said candidly. Of course, when the teams met during the regular season in January, Victor didn’t score, losing 3-0 on home ice.
But once they fell behind on Saturday at SUNY Brockport’s Tuttle Ice Arena, the Blue Devils ramped up the forecheck and began to gain momentum. No, they hadn’t scored, but they were down by just one against the powerhouse unbeaten team from Section VI, a team that had allowed just 14 goals all season, a team that had trailed just one time all season.
Yet here were the Blue Devils, not just hanging around but starting to apply pressure.
“We were very aggressive and we never stopped,” Victor senior forward Charles Romeis said. “Toward the end of the second period you could tell they were getting a little scared.”
The fright became justified when McNamara scored on a power play 8:05 into the third period, tying the score 1-1. Free in the right circle, he fired a shot top shelf.
“I just got a chance and just shot it and it went in,” he said.
Victor then took the lead at 12:27 when Kowal’s shot from the right point hit a defender’s skate and caromed into the net.
Suddenly the underdog was in control, and the Blue Devils methodically denied the Quakers anything close to a great scoring chance before McNamara scored the clinching goal into an empty net with 1:21 to play.
“We chopped them down,” Romeis said.
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