Canton, Potsdam Girls Fall Despite Dominant Efforts

CANTON - The Canton and Potsdam Central girls hockey teams combined to outshoot their opponents 72-29 on Saturday, but both were eliminated with tough losses in the quarterfinals of the Girls Hockey League playoffs.

Number-two seed Canton was denied 3-2 in overtime by Alex Bay while defending champion and number-three seed Potsdam fell 2-1 to Skaneateles which will host the Final Four this coming weekend with Alex Bay, Oswego and Chazy rounding out the field.

Alex Bay 3, Canton 2 (2 OT): The Lady Bears outshot the visitors 44-22, but saw their season end at the 1:31 mark of the second overtime when Jamie Wiley scored her second unassisted goal of the day, on Alex Bay's lone shot on goal in overtime, to give her team the 3-2 victory.

Wiley's rising 20-foot wrist shot eluded Canton goaltender Laurie King who played a strong game in finishing with 19 saves on the day.

Canton (13-2-3) was denied on several golden scoring opportunities by Alex Bay netminder Caitlin Russell who finished with 42 saves including four tough stops in overtime.

"We've had trouble all season trying to score and we've tried different things. We had great goalies to shoot on in practice and we scored in practice. But in games we just weren't burying the puck enough," said Canton coach Christen Powers whose team recorded nine one-goal victories this season.

"It definitely was not from lack of effort. They put their hearts out there on the ice. It's unfortunate it ends this way today."

Mickey Lennox connected from Jess Denoncourt late in the first period to put Canton up 1-0, but Wiley answered with her first unassisted goal at 3:27 of the second.

With 6:39 left in regulation, Lennox took a pass from behind the net from Denoncourt and scored her second of the game with Taylor Marcellus also assisting.

But Alex Bay (12-5-1) again answered, one minute and 15 seconds later on the power play, as Jessica Prance knocked in the rebound of a shot by Wiley.

"I looked at this team at the beginning of the year and I knew we were going to go far. I really thought we'd go to the final four and take it away," said coach Powers.

"We had a lot of close games this year and we always left it out there right until the end. We proved we were a good team, we finished one point behind the leader (Chazy), but we just had a tough loss today."

Skaneateles 2, Potsdam 1: At Pine St. Arena in Potsdam, Maddy Elia and Victoria Major each scored second-period goals for the Lakers and Potsdam, despite a 28-8 shots-on-goal advantage, could not get on the board until 23 seconds remained in regulation time when Abby Adams connected from Keely Rice. Alice Brown made 27 saves in goal for Skaneateles (4-6-2) while Abby Tardelli made seven stops for Potsdam (10-6-3).

"We just couldn't put the puck in the net today," said Potsdam coach Joe Stark.

"We lost a lot of players from last year and this team was a good group which made good progress during the season."