Cortland Standard .net

The numbers didn’t favor the Cortland-Homer hockey team against visiting Liverpool Friday night ... except on the scoreboard.
The Division II Golden Eagles were outshot 34-33 and were whistled for seven penalties to a rare clean-slate none for the Warriors, but still came away with a 4-1 non-league win over their Division I guests.
Obviously no penalties compared to seen is a pretty big discrepancy,” said C-H coach Chad Totman, whose team is now 5-2-1 overall, including a 5-0-1 run since losing its first two games of the season. “It affected us, especially in the second period; we controlled play in the first, outshooting them 13-8, but they scored on a power play near the end of the period, In the second we had to kill a 5-on-3, then 1:30 after that got another penalty; it was like skate a shit, get a penalty, back and fourth. I told the guys not to give the officials any opportunity to give them penalties, and to buckle down and keep going.
“We did control a lot of the play; a lot of their shots were on power plays, and we still almost matched them in shots and scored four goals. The joke afterwards was that maybe we should play in Division I.”
The Golden Eagles are 4-0 this season against Division I squads, including last weekend’s 2-1 win over Frontier from Section 6 in the championship game of their own holiday tournament.
Liverpool junior forward Tommy Bianchi’s power-play goal with 1:12 left in the first period opened the scoring, the assist going to senior linemate Nate Bittel. The hosts then quickly took the lead for good early in the second. Junior left wing Nick Johnson scored his third goal of the year four minutes into the middle stanza, senior defenseman John Burhans getting the assist after bearing down on Warriors sophomore goalie Steven Kozikoski and taking a shot, the rebound kicking out to Johnson, who put it home. Just 35 seconds later junior center Josh Button notched his third goal of the season on a similar play, sophomore defenseman Jared Berry with the rush this time and taking a shot that senior left wing Brian Ordway tipped, the rebound kicking out to Button, who found the back of the net.
Senior right wing Mike May made it 3-1 with a short-handed goal at 9:34 of the third period, coming down the center on a breakaway and going to his backhand to put the puck past Kozikoski on the left side for his third goal this winter. Senior center Danny Turck closed out the scoring on an empty-net goal with 32 seconds left, controlling the puck at center ice and taking a shot from the blue line for his team-high fifth goal of the campaign as a defenseman tried in vain to stop it from going in.
Senior goalie Tyler Wallace made 33 saves to Kozokoski’s 29 as the Warriors had a 34-33 shot advantage.
“Our defense is stepping up their game,” Totman said. “”We still have things to work on, and we have to stay focused. We can’t let the kids get overconfident. We want to focus on Oswego, who we play Tuesday (on the road in a 7 p.m. start) and get rolling from there.”