While the Baldwnisville boys soccer team could yet spoil the championship dreams of Fayetteville-Manlius again, it could not keep them from closing out an undefeated regular season in the most dramatic way possible.
A goal in the last minute of regulation sent the Hornets past the Bees, 1-0, in their lone regular-season encounter last Friday night at Swan Pond.
All season long, B’ville, winner of five of the last six sectional titles, and F-M, building a 15-0 mark and rising to no. 4 in the state Class AA rankings, had eyed each other from afar, and while the Bees’ 11-3-1 mark didn’t jump out, it was playing its best soccer of the season and wanted nothing more than to put the lone blemish on the Hornets’ regular season.
And for most of the 80 minutes of regulation, it remained a stalemate. B’ville had a fair number of chances, only to get turned back by a stingy F-M defense working toward its 11th shutout this fall, Ben Obrist recording six saves.
For its part, the Hornets patiently waited for opportunities of its own, and got plenty of them against B’ville’s defense, but got thwarted most of the way, seeing eight direct shots snapped up by Bees goalie Nick Lindovski.
Then, almost like a script, F-M put up one more attack as regulation time ticked down. Tysen Tresness drew B’ville players toward him, and then passed to Jules Ngadula, who with 37 seconds left slid a shot past Lindovski.
In no way did the Bees look ahead to F-M, even though the Hornets had shown vulnerability in the lead-up thanks to an overtime win over Nottingham Oct. 11 at Swan Pond and a last-second victory over Henninger last Tuesday night.
While F-M stressed with Henninger, B’ville was busy taking apart West Genesee 4-1, all of the damage done in a first-half blitz where four different players – Connor Ross, Griffin Lynch, Alex Burrer and Alex Anselment – scored the four goals.
Protecting that big lead, the Bees didn’t quite get the shutout thanks to WG’s Michael Apenteng scoring in the second half, but the easy win was welcome, exactly what it needed before it faced F-M.
And while it lost that game at Swan Pond, it left knowing that it was close enough to imagine that a Section III Class AA playoff rematch could turn out quite different.
But that would have to come in the final, because B’ville has the no. 3 seed in the AA bracket, and in the quarterfinals will face either no. 6 seed CBA or no. 11 seed Rome Free Academy late this week.
