Late goals lift St. Joe’s over Williamsville North
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

Williamsville North’s Nick Angelo body checks St. Joe’s Jeffery Amico for the puck during the Spartans’ 4-2 Division I loss on Thursday on the Amherst Pepsi Center Feature Rink. Photo by Joe Eberle

Two late St. Joe’s third period goals lifted the Marauders to a 4-2 win over Division I rival Williamsville North on Thursday on the Amherst Pepsi Center Feature Rink.

It was North’s first loss of the season. St. Joe’s improved to 5-0.

Anthony Caruso scored on the power play with 3:15 left in the third period from Ron Femia and Kris Raepple. Raepple added an odd-man rush goal from Femia and Mark Gramza II 55 seconds later for St. Joe’s.

“They try to throw the puck and create odd man rushes and they have lots of speed up front and we didn’t do a great job of handling their speed,” said North coach Bob Rosen.

Cole Schneider opened the scoring for the Marauders with a first period goal from Raepple and Lucas Marchiori. North tied it up at 10:06 of the second on the power-play from Nick Angelo and

Jake Fronczak. St. Joe’s Pat Ruggerio (Femia, Caruso) and a power play goal from North’s Jake Newton (Justin Kochan, Ryan Geary) made it 2-2 after the second period.

North’s Brandon Komm made 35 saves, including 17 in the third period. North had 32 shots, nine in the third.

A game write-up of North’s 4-2 win over Frontier on Saturday as well as their performance in the Morrisville Ice Classic, will appear in the Jan. 3 edition. North is 4-1 in league play.

Williamsville South

All Bishop Timon-St. Jude needed was three good scoring chances to shut out the Billies, 3-0, Thursday on the Olympic Rink.

The Tigers scored a goal in each period, two coming from Michael Cassidy. Cassidy scored his first with two minutes left in the first period from John Garvin off a faceoff and his second on the power play from Mike McCarthy and Michael Carrig with 4:33 remaining in the game. Mike Miranda

scored with 2:03 left in the second from Steve Zappia after a South defenseman pinched which sprung Miranda loose on a breakaway.

“I thought we played a good game,” said South coach Sean Green, whose team dropped to 3-6. “We’re generating some chances. We have to learn how to finish. We hit three posts and a couple went off their goalie’s mask… The coaching staff was pleased with the effort.”

Timon outshot South, 23-20. Matt Green played strong in net for South, said Green, stopping a couple of breakaways.

South lost to Kenmore East, 6-0, on Saturday. A game write-up of the South-Kenmore East game and the South-St. Francis game to be held at 3 p.m. Saturday on the Feature Rink, will appear in the Jan. 3 edition.

e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com