Leading off today: Fresh off last weekend's overtime win against West Genesee,
Williamsville North blanked top-ranked Mamaroneck 1-0 Saturday at HarborCenter in Buffalo to advance to the NYSPHSAA Division I championship game.
Trevor Cavalier scored his first goal of the season late in the first period and goaltender Jake Zurat, feeling the effects of a cold, made it stand up by stopping all 13 shots he faced.
"You just try to block out the sickness as best you can and once it came to game time, you just try to relax and play your game," Zurat told The Buffalo News. "I think our defense did a good job keeping them to the outside and blocking shots at key points and that made my job easier."
Williamsville North's opponent in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association will be Pittsford, a 2-1 winner over Massena in the other semifinal.
"If everything fell into place, we knew we had the hardest path to the final," Spartans coach Bob Rosen said. "We had no gimme games. ... Our league is such that you don't get many easy nights, which I think has helped us (in the postseason)."
Forward Andy Bronstein scored what proved to be Pittsford's winning goal early in the second period.
"We played well," Panthers coach Steve Thering told the Democrat and Chronicle. "It would have been nice to get that extra goal, but a win is a win at this point in the season and (Sunday's) the state championship."
Division II semifinals: Top-ranked Pelham cruised to a 6-0 win over Brockport by building a two-goal advantage in the first period and then continuing to apply relentless pressure.
"I was kind of surprised a little bit that we were as crisp as we were," Pelham coach Ed Witz told The Journal News. "There's always going to be some nerves, there's always going to be some jitters and it looks like they were benign to that. We came out and controlled the game."
