ONONDAGA COUNTY – No matter its own record or its place in the standings, something is different when the Baldwinsville ice hockey team meets up each winter with West Genesee. Physical play abounds, goals can be scarce, and many different times the stakes can prove enormous whether it’s the regu lar season or the Section III playoffs. Their encounter would come early this winter, the Bees playing just its second game of the season last Wednesday night at Shove Park against a Wildcats side at 2-2 with defeats to Pittsford and Skaneateles on its ledger. And it was just the situation the Bees needed to get its first win over WG since 2023. This was a 2-1 decision typical of so many previous encounters with the exception that this time B’ville finished in front. The Wildcats got the jump here with Parker Berg’s first-period goal assisted by Nick Meluni. But that’s all WG would get against a Bees defense which resolutely turned back everything else. That started to matter in the second period when Dan Hinman and Alessio McGrane both put shots past Donovan Wissel, assisting on each other’s goals and also getting assists from Keegan Crowley and Dom DeRito. Wissel, who finished with 32 saves, and the Wildcats’ defense clamped down from there. But all of the Wildcats’ attempts to tie it through the rest of the second and the entire third period got turned back, with Bees goalie Zach Bice recording 35 saves. Big as this win was, B’ville would feel even better if it followed it up with another win back home at Three Rivers Athletic Complex against visiting St. Lawrence two nights later. Without any practice in between the two games, the Bees still managed to avoid any kind of letdown, controlling the game in all phases to blank St. Lawrence 6-0. What was even more impressive was the way B’ville spread around its production with six different goal-scorers as Crowley and Rylan MacCollum both picked up a goal and two assists. Dom Purtell also had two assists, while Rocco Weaver had one goal and one assist. McGrane, Hinman and Dylan Breen had the other goals. B’ville’s defense held St. Lawrence to 13 shots, all stopped by Chase Brooks and Abigail Roth. B’ville gets to stay home at TRAC this week for games against Fayetteville-Manlius and Burnt Hills-Ballston Spa on Friday night. ...read more read less