CICERO – Something seemed quite familiar on a rain-soaked Friday night at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
Here was the West Genesee boys lacrosse team, meeting up with long-time rival Fayetteville-Manlius with a Section III championship at stake, and putting together the kind of comprehensive effort that was the hallmark of so many great Wildcats teams of the past.
Sure, the game was in Class B instead of Class A, but the result, a convincing 19-7 West Genesee victory, brought of the nation’s best high school lacrosse programs back to the championship level it expects every year, but hadn’t seen in a while.
“It’s the best feeling,” said junior attacker Liam Burns, whose seven goals and four assists paced WG’s potent attack.
What made it even more remarkable, in this particular instance, was that these were the same Hornets that had beaten the Wildcats 9-7 just 10 days earlier in the regular-season finale. Burns said that, for this game, many new plays were installed and caused all kinds of confusion for F-M defenders, leading to chances and goals.
On the other end, WG’s defense was just as good, the back line of Sam Rosa, Jack Garvey and Nelson Hudgins leading a unit that kept F-M off the board for the game’s first 19-plus minutes, by which point the Wildcats already had a 7-0 advantage.
Rosa said that the intent was for the defenders to force the Hornets into uncomfortable situations, whether it was low-percentage scoring chances or a quicker tempo.
“We just wanted to keep them from getting easy shots and make them play faster than they wanted,” said Rosa.
That plan worked close to perfection, with effective stops on defense and a barrage of chances that led to a 10-3 halftime advantage and then four unanswered goals to open the third quarter, two of them by River Oudemool, that made it 14-3.
But then the rain, steady throughout the game’s early portion, picked up in volume, and amid the downpour F-M had its lone surge, going on a 4-0 run of its own to trim the Wildcats’ lead to 14-7.
In the opening minute of the final period, a rumble of thunder in the sky caused a 30-minute weather delay, during which time the Wildcats regrouped and, when things resumed, promptly scored three goals in 56 seconds to put the game away.
Aside from Burns, Oudemool, Nolan Belotti and Charles Lockwood each produced three-goal hat tricks, with Lockwood going behind the back on a couple of occasions to dazzle the crowd. Jack Mellen and Teshale Kelly each had a goal and two assists. Patrick Linton added one goal and one assist.
Next Saturday, WG returns to Bragman Stadium for the Class B regional final against Section IV champion Vestal, who beat the Wildcats 9-8 back on April 12.
“We’re happy we won (the sectional championship),” said Rosa. “But we’re not done yet.”
