By Warren Kozireski —
The path Oswego State starting goaltender Steven Kozikoski took to play college hockey is not a well-worn one. Four years with Liverpool High School and then leaving before his senior year to spend two years in the NA3HL with the Syracuse and Oswego Stampede.
His numbers were solid, especially in his second year of junior with a 3.24 goals against average and .929 save percentage.
Then it was off to Oswego for the 2018-19 season where he learned from two upperclassmen ahead of him in the crease. He did see nine games in 2019-20 late in the season, but then momentum was lost with the cancelled covid season of 2020-21.
That brings us to this season and the soon-to-be 23-year-old son of Suzanne and Gregory has sparkled in the Lakers net with a 1.62 GAA and .941 save percentage heading into the last weekend of January. And a 9-3-1 record for the Lakers, who are on a 11-2-1 run after winning just one of the first three contests.
“It’s a great story and awesome to see,” Oswego head coach Ed Gosek said. “We watched him and he was facing 50-60 shots a game and we were like, if this kid sticks with it and gets some coaching and plays against better guys, he’ll have the opportunity.
“The pre-covid year he came in as our number three and ends up being our number one. (Now) he’s playing his best hockey since he’s been here. Those are the guys as a coach you just love to see have success.”
“It’s kind of wild how it happened,” Kozikoski said. “I was the third guy, but a couple of seniors put my name in the coach’s ear and got in the line-up and ever since then I’ve kind of ran with it. Up until now it’s crazy to think that a guy that came from Tier-3 juniors to this point in my career, but you can’t take any moment for granted because I only have a handful of games left in my career. Every game is special at this point.”
After four years of high school hockey with Liverpool, Kozikoski made a difficult decision.
“I started in eighth grade and that was a tough point in my life because I had been with the guys for a long-time playing school sports with them, so making the decision to leave my senior year to pursue play junior hockey was a tough decision, but I think it obviously played out pretty well.
“Our old high school coach went to school here (Oswego), so he showed us the facilities and all that and then, as a kid when we came as a youth team to watch this team play was the coolest thing ever and now to play here is something special.
“My second year of juniors, we gave the coach a list of teams that in a million years I didn’t think I would be on and teams that I expected to be on and Oswego was on the list of teams that I didn’t think I would be on.
“But I got my opportunity here and every day my freshman year I worked because I knew there were two solidified goalies and I had to catch up to them and somehow get ahead of them. It’s been a special four years here at Oswego.”
Kozikoski earned his first collegiate win on Jan. 25, 2020 against Canton and registered his first collegiate shutout against Morrisville on Feb. 14 the same season.
A SUNYAC championship and/or an NCAA postseason appearance could be the perfect ending to this fairy tale story.
(Oswego Men’s Hockey Photo)
