It only figures that the undefeated, state no. 1-ranked Fayetteville-Manlius boys soccer team will need to gets past its recent post-season nemesis if it wants to reclaim the Section III Class AA championship.

The top-seeded Hornets’ 2-1 victory over no. 4 seed Cicero-North Syracuse in Thursday night’s AA semifinal at Liverpool High School Stadium sets up a title-game showdown on that same Liverpool turf Monday night at 7:30 against Baldwinsville, who edged Fowler 1-0 in the other semifinal.

Five times in the last seven years, F-M and B’ville have met in the sectional final. Every time – whether in regulation, overtime or through penalty kicks – it was the Hornets on the wrong end of the decision, and the Bees emerging triumphant.

Even when F-M finished its 16-0 regular season by stopping B’ville on Oct. 17 at Swan Pond, it took a goal from Jules Ngadula in the last minute of regulation to pull out a 1-0 decision.

To get back to the sectional final again, F-M first had to negotiate its way past C-NS, and both of their regular-season meetings had ended in 1-0 margins, one of them going to overtime, so the Hornets knew how tough an opponent the Northstars were.

And it didn’t take long for the Hornets to apply pressure and get in front. C-NS goalie Matt Siegel made a point-blank save on Ngadula’s attempt to set up a corner kick, only to have Anthony Kousmanidis find the net on that set piece just 4:11 into the game.

Needing a response, the Northstars made its own series of runs, forcing F-M goalie Ben Obrist to make a big stop on Evan Gakeler’s free kick midway through the first half.

But there was nothing Obrist could do in the 23rd minute when C-NS’s Austin Mizell lobbed a perfect corner kick from the right side to the far post, where Kyle Tracy sent a header inside the top left corner of the net.

It was just the sixth goal the Hornets’ defense had allowed all season, and it didn’t bother them too much. Instead, it resumed the initiative, getting several sprints into the C-NS end and waiting for another opening.

That came in the 36th minute, when Tysen Tresness, working the ball in the left corner, sent a darting cross to the middle. Several F-M forwards were poised to strike, but it was Kousmanidis getting the ball and ripping it into the net to break the 1-1 tie.

Throughout the early portion of the second half, C-NS made sporadic runs, occasionally getting shots on the net, but getting nothing more past Obrist, whose diving save in the 60th minute kept his side in front.

Meanwhile, Ngadula kept breaking free of C-NS defenders, kept getting open lanes to the net – and kept missing, his shots drifting wide or long when even one more goal may have locked it up.

F-M fans watched with some dread as the Northstars earned a corner kick and free kick in the last minute of regulation, but the defense made one more big stop, and the Hornets were back in the sectional final – where an all-too-familiar foe, clad in red, awaits.