Much of the Cicero-North Syracuse field hockey team’s 2014 season was spent traveling elsewhere, as it played 10 consecutive road games while waiting for the new Field Turf at Bragman Stadium to get finished.
At last, though, the turf was ready, and on Monday night the Northstars came back home in the sweetest way possible, recording a 1-0 victory over its neighbor and rival, Liverpool.
All of that time spent on the road led to plenty of team bonding for C-NS. It also gave them a chance to shake off early-season struggles, and an 0-4 start soon turned into a six-game win streak that included beating Liverpool 2-0 on Sept. 24 at LHS Stadium.
Meanwhile, the Warriors appeared to turn its season around with its 3-2 win over Cazenovia on Sept. 29. But then the worst thing happened – it didn’t play again until the rematch with C-NS, and by then, whatever momentum Liverpool picked up from the Cazenovia effort may have dissipated.
Still, unlike the first encounter, Liverpool had much more possession time in the first half, playing the Northstars on fairly even terms, but getting little out of it.
Then, with 2:40 left in the the half, the Northstars, off a penalty corner, saw Liverpool goalie Megan Evangelista wander from the net to make a save, only to have the ball ricochet to Marie Aloi, who pounded home the go-ahead goal.
To its credit, Liverpool’s defense shut down the Northstars the rest of the way, Evangelista recording six saves and waiting to see if her teammates could break through against C-NS’s resistance.
But it never happened. Every time the Warriors brought the ball down the wings, senior defenders McKenna Burgwin and Shannon Dengos, along with eighth-grader Jamie Wagner, broke up the plays, and only occasionally did the ball get near the net, where goalie Julia Lantry picked up four saves.
