They might only spend one season in Class A, but each of the Marcellus soccer teams is trying to make the most of the temporary promotion and claim their respective Section III titles.
On a long, warm and occasionally wet Tuesday night at Liverpool High School Stadium, the Mustangs swept a sectional Class A semifinal doubleheader with lots of tension along the way.
It started with the girls Class A semifinal, which went to penalty kicks before the no. 3 seed Mustangs finally outlasted no. 7 seed East Syracuse-Minoa, and continued in the boys Class A semifinal, where one goal was enough for the Mustangs (also a no. 3 seed) to stop Fulton (also a no. 7 seed) by a 1-0 margin.
The girls Mustangs and Spartans had met two weeks earlier, at Marcellus, with the Mustangs prevailing 3-0 in windy, warm conditions. They had warm temperatures again at Liverpool, but the breeze was down, and the Spartans would turn stingy.
Through 80 minutes of regulation, it stayed 0-0. Marcellus had a fair share of runs down the field, only to get turned away by a well-positioned ESM defense that learned, from its first meeting, how to shut down running lanes for the likes of Madison Belvito and Jade Sargeant.
At the same time, whenever the Spartans attacked, a Mustang defense led by Nellie Ramsden, Alana Montreal, Kara Johnson and Keelin Kelly offered ample protection in front of goalie Emily Buschbascher, who played the whole game and would earn five saves.
With the score 0-0, they went to 20 mandatory minutes of overtime, but that didn’t settle anything, nor did 10 minutes of sudden-death OT.
That left the outcome to penalty kicks. Each side took five turns, and they each scored three times and missed twice. Now it was single-round elimination, and right at the end, ESM missed – and Marcellus did not.
All of this proved particularly satisfying for Buschbascher, who was in the net when the Mustangs lost the state Class B final to Oneonta one year ago.
Now, with a save in the shoot-out, she was a big reason why Marcellus is going back to Cortland Saturday to try and take down top seed and defending champion Jamesville-DeWitt, who pulled away to beat Whitesboro 4-1 in the other semifinal after surviving its own penalty-kick battle with CBA in the previous round.
Once this long battle ended, the Marcellus boys soccer team finally took the field, looking to reach its first sectional final since 2011.
Having not met in the regular season, Marcellus would need some time to adjust to Fulton’s style of play. They also had to wait out the girls Mustangs’ long, draining semifinal against East Syracuse-Minoa (won in penalty kicks) before it could even take the field.
Once it did, though, the Mustangs controlled the flow of play, probing and working against a stubborn Fulton defense before it put home the go-ahead goal in the first half.
And that was all Marcellus needed. Fulton, try as it could, was not able to crack the code against a tough Mustangs back line, anchored by defenders Ross Filtch, Kyle Cangemi and Kyle Felty, who made sure that goalie Ian LaFever did not have to stress too much.
