CORTLAND – While championships are attained many different ways, the way the Fayetteville-Manlius girls lacrosse team earned the Section III Class B title carried with it a particular satisfaction that was hard to top.
The Hornets, beaten twice in the regular season by long-time rival West Genesee, won when it counted the most, knocking off the Wildcats 13-8 in Tuesday night’s sectional final at SUNY-Cortland.
The ties between these two teams went beyond the usual rivalry script. The two head coaches – Leah Tuck of F-M, Shannon Burke-Musak for West Genesee – played against each other in high school with the Hornets and Wildcats, and then were college teammates at the University of Connecticut.
More important, though, was the fact that F-M had taken those earlier losses at WG’s expense, one of them a tense 11-10 game in April, the other a 19-13 setback in early May.
And this one didn’t start well, either, as Reis Pagan netted three early goals and the Wildcats led, 3-1. Quickly, though, it was apparent F-M had learned plenty from those earlier meetings and were ready to apply the lessons.
Five straight goals from four different players in the middle portion of the first half gave the Hornets a lead it would not relinquish, with Ava Angello scoring twice and goals also going to Anne Leonard, Emily Noel and Melanie Steigerwald.
Again doing well on the draws (she grabbed 14 of them on the night), Angello returned late in the half to answer a goal by Rylee Gonzalez, and the Hornets went to halftime sporting a 7-4 lead.
Early in the second half, Angello worked her total to five goals as F-M’s margin grew to 10-6. WG tried to rally, Courtney Reynolds converting and then Cara Major scoring with 9:02 to play that cut the margin in half.
But a key defensive stop by Julia Tedeschi followed and, with 5:17 left, Julianna Cogliandro put one past Allie Hanlon to make it 11-8. M Leonard tacked on a pair of insurance goals to seal F-M’s win.
Noel had a superb showing, putting up four assists to go with her pair of goals. Leonard, Steigerwald and Cogliandro each had an assist. Courtney Reynolds was the only player other than Pagan to score twice for the Wildcats.
If F-M benefited from getting a third opportunity against West Genesee, the reverse happened to Jamesville-DeWitt in the sectional Class C final, the defending champion Red Rams dethroned by Fulton in an 11-9 defeat.
When these teams met twice in an eight-day stretch in April, J-D dominated, winning by margins of 18-6 and 15-7. But the Red Raiders went 7-1 to close the regular season, snared the no. 3 seed for the sectional playoffs and, after routing Carthage, won a 13-12 thriller over no. 2 seed Homer in the semifinals.
The Rams quickly found out how much Fulton had improved, with the challengers refusing to be rattled, even after Brooke Bort and Lindsey Hildreth scored 17 seconds apart early in the first half to give J-D a 3-2 lead.
As it turned out, it was the Rams’ only lead of the night.
Fulton went on a 7-1 run, controlling most of the draws and seeing a diverse attack led by Carleigh Patterson and Cara Bednarz tear through J-D’s defenses.
Still, the Rams were far from done. Trailing 8-5 at the break, J-D stayed patient through the Red Raiders’ long possessions as it waited for a chance to unleash its own attack.
Then, down 10-7 after Bednarz scored with 8:55 to play, J-D quickly countered, Hildreth finding the net just 16 seconds later and Macy Durkin converting with 6:48 left, moving the Rams within one.
Again, though, Fulton claimed the draw and then worked down the clock, keeping it away from J-D’s sticks and utilizing a time-out.
Frustrated, J-D drew a yellow card and the Red Raiders, a player up, sealed it when Patterson netted her fourth goal with 1:51 to play and it got yet another draw to run out the remaining clock.
Bednarz, aside from her three goals, picked up four assists as Hildreth was the only J-D player to net three goals. Bort and Durkin had two goals apiece and Merris Kessler added a goal.
