Four years after it finally broke through for a Section III Class A championship, the Jamesville-DeWitt boys soccer team moved closer to another title in the most exciting way possible.
Jordan VanStry’s goal late in the first overtime helped the no. 4 seed Red Rams upend top seed Indian River 2-1 in Wednesday night’s Class A semifinal at Watertown High School.
And it sends J-D to Saturday night’s title game at SUNY-Cortland against no. 6 seed Marcellus, who edged Fulton 1-0 in the other semifinal on Tuesday at Liverpool. Game time is at 7:30, right after the girls sectional Class A final that also features the Red Rams and Mustangs.
What made this particular win so special was the way J-D responded to a damaging blow late in regulation. As time wound down in the second half, the Rams clung to a 1-0 lead on Indian River, which it had gained early in the half when Tyler Lux pounced on the rebound of Josh Frank’s shot that Warriors goalie Zach LaForest-Hurd and put it into the net.
Going all-out, IR kept putting pressure on J-D’s defense, and just when it looked like the Rams would hang on, Tyler Cook, taking a feed from Kyle Smith, delivered a strong header past Rams goalie D.J. Newman with less than two minutes to play.
Now J-D had to regroup, and it utilized the long break between regulation and OT to do just that, hoping that the Warriors, who had never reached a sectional semifinal before (and were coming off a first-time Frontier League A division title, too), would not maintain the momentum of that tying goal.
Gradually, as the first OT period wore on, the Rams began regular attacks again. It all paid off at the 11-minute mark, thanks to a well-timed pass from Tyler Lichtenstein, who hit a wide-open Vanstry in stride. Choosing to go low, VanStry, whose high shots hadn’t worked during the game, sent a screaming liner that LaForest-Hurd could not grab, the ball going through his legs into the net.
And this sends J-D back to the same sectional final where it lost to CBA a year ago. Marcellus is the opponent now, the Rams having defeated them 2-0 on Sept. 23, but knowing how much the Mustangs have improved since, and hoping that its title-game experience will pay off.
