CENTRAL NEW YORK – All season long as it climbed to no. 4 in the state Class B rankings and won 12 games in a row, the Christian Brothers Academy girls soccer team understood that any path to a championship would go through Marcellus.
That only got reinforced Tuesday night at Alibrandi Stadium where the defending sectional champion Mustangs backed up the no. 1 state ranking it has held since September, shutting out the Brothers 3-0.
A single goal in the first half got Marcellus in front, and it wouldn’t get matched because of the way it possessed and ball and, on defense, turned back most of CBA’s attacks and saw Tenly Baker stop everything directly sent to her.
Up 1-0 at the half, the Mustangs got away, ultimately seeing three different players score. Lexie Fragnito got her 21st goal of the season, with Jadyn Baker and Corrine Aldrich also converting. An assist was credited to Neve Murphy.
There wasn’t much of a chance for the Brothers to fret about this result since it met a strong Chittenango side in Thursday night’s regular-season finale, which turned into an all-time classic that CBA pulled out 4-3 in double overtime.
The Bears, going into the game 10-4, proved it could stay with a high-quality opponent without leaning too much on Abby Scheidelman, who entered the game with 32 goals this season.
In fact, with CBA worried about Scheidelman in the opening minutes the Bears stunned the Brothers with two quick goals from others – one from eighth-grader Camryn Potter, the other from Dominique Brown.
It nearly got to halftime 2-0 but the Brothers moved within one when Ciara Duggan converted just 11 seconds before intermission to snatch momentum that carried over.
Naveah Bacheyie tied it early in the second half and Anisa Tavarez gave CBA a 3-2 edge with 11 minutes left, only to have Scheidelman, bottled up most of the way, force a turnover and find the net late in regulation.
This led to OT, and after one scoreless period the match seemed headed for a draw. But with time running low Duggan returned and, taking a pass from Harper Bonstad, put home the decisive goal for the Brothers.
