CENTRAL NEW YORK – All season long, the Baldwinsville field hockey team has swung between extremes, sometimes unable to keep up with the top large-school sides, other times getting really close to a breakthrough.
That was where the Bees still stood going into the Section III Class A playoffs.
B’ville took yet another tight defeat on Monday, 1-0 to Little Falls, the fourth time this fall (out of eight defeats) the Bees lost by a single goal.
For most of the game it stayed 0-0, Chloe Butler ultimately working her total to six saves, but the Mounties broke through in the fourth quarter when Jayden Regan scored off a feed from Makaylah Mowers, which held up.
Against Auburn a day later, B’ville broke out in the second quarter, scoring three times, which ultimately made the difference in a 4-1 victory over the Maroons.
Whenever the Bees’ attack is in rhythm, Abigail Mantione is usually in the middle of it, Mantione scoring twice and tacking on an assist.
Helping out, Kelly Nadzan and Olivia Denny earned single goals, though the Bees could not quite get a shutout as Alex Durant scored for Auburn assisted by Sydney Yurco.
The regular season concluded Thursday at Port Byron/Union Springs where the Bees equaled its Auburn margin and, in a 3-0 shutout, climbed to 8-8 overall.
Here the surge came early, a pair of first-quarter goals that the Bees would use as its cushion while shutting down the Panthers and then tacking on a fourth-quarter goal.
Mantione continued to roll with two more goals to run her season total to 14, more than half the Bees’ entire total. She also assisted on the other goal by Nadzan as B’ville held Port Byron/Union Springs to just three shots all game.
