The most well-known resident of Orchard Park, N.Y., the Bills, like to play the Isley Brothers classic “Shout” for their home games. Dec. 28 in Day 2 of the Brother James Memorial tournament, the high school hockey team that calls that locale home made Gilmour want to shout. For all the wrong reasons. Sean Porter provided a brief spark early in the third period, but the Lancers struggled to generate quality looks in front of the crease and Orchard Park made them pay for it down the stretch. The Quakers popped in three goals in the third for a 5-1 rout. If it were a fish, as far as Gilmour (8-9) was concerned, this one would have been thrown back, as their opponents from New York moved the puck with precision, cycled impeccably on special teams and made this a rough ride for the hosts. “Our inability to score continues to be our Achilles’ heel,” Gilmour coach John Malloy said. “Defense is awesome, and defense can win championships and all that other stuff. But defense doesn’t give you emotional pushes. You need to have offense at the right time, at critical times, especially the younger the players are. And the more immature they are, then even more so, because that’s what feeds that energy to keep working hard. “And when you’re not scoring, when you get chances and things don’t seem to be falling your way, it builds. And so I would say I’m most proud of the fact that, despite that lack of emotional energy that comes from scoring goals, our kids have kept working hard.” Down, 2-0, after two, the Lancers did get a break early in the third. Porter, brought into the Varsity A squad from Gilmour’s 16-and-under team, collected a pass from Riordan Sjovold skating through the left circle. Porter did well with a shortside wrister, pulling the Lancers within 2-1. Gilmour halves the deficit at 1:072-1 OP pic.twitter.com/4F7jalQf9A — Chris Lillstrung (@CLillstrungNH) December 29, 2024 That was the high-water mark in Gilmour’s second game of the day, following a 3-0 loss in the afternoon to Dayton Stealth. Orchard Park’s Tyler Buchheit and Sean Robertson buried pucks 15 seconds apart, the former by Buchheit coming at 4:22 on a power play from the right circle. Buchheit also provided the final margin at 7:53. Gilmour had been within 1-0 deep into the second, but the problem was generating any semblance of deep-in-the-zone quality. The Lancers had just seven shots through two. Within a shout, but quickly far from it down the stretch in the third. “We are who we are,” Malloy said. “I like my team. I like a lot of the things that we do. But we still have a lot of guys who were playing at a level where they could get away with things — and now, these teams expose that.”