When the clock ran out Thursday night and the Marcellus girls soccer team’s 1-0 victory over Westhill was secure, the Mustangs fans began a chant of “Lilly! Lilly! Lilly!”
The object of their affection was Lilly Schultz, a junior who made her first start as a goalkeeper – and managed to earn a shutout of the Mustangs’ long-time rivals on the eve of the Section III Class B playoffs.
Any time these two teams meet, the intensity is picked up, given their shared history of regular-season success and post-season glory, often at each other’s expense.
And Schultz, normally a midfielder, was pressed into duty in the net in part because Josephine Leubner was injured when these teams met 12 days earlier in Marcellus in a game Westhill won 2-0 in overtime.
From the outset, Schultz calmly handled the pressure the Warriors applied, with plenty of help from the back line that played in front of her.
Between them, Kaitlyn Worden, Anna Spitzer, Eve Chapman and Annalise Bird effectively dealt with Westhill, not allowing a single corner kick during a scoreless first half.
And though the Warriors got more chances early in the second half, it was on a counterattack in the 55th minute that the Mustangs went out in front, Emma MacLachlan seeing her cross from the right side glance off a Westhill player and inside the right post.
Good as Marcellus was on defense, it was also fortunate. Twice in the last 15 minutes, Westhill’s Hannah Thayer got close to tying it, with one long shot crashing off the crossbar and another, on a free kick, finding the left post.
Both times, Schultz was able to handle the ball before it could get rebounded home, and in the final minute she made one more clutch stop on Maya Wollen’s point-blank attempt, her seventh save of the night.
