In order for the Baldwinsville girls soccer team to add a second state title to the one it earned 13 years ago, it merely had to take down the reigning two-time state champions from Massapequa.
And it almost happened – until a 48-second stretch midway through the second half of Sunday’s state Class AA final at SUNY-Cortland turned potential triumph into a 3-1 defeat to the Chiefs.
To the end, said head coach Kathy More, her players “kept working. Unfortunately, they couldn’t finish it.”
Less than four minutes into the game, a series of great passes, the last one by Jade Gentile, set up Bella May with a point-blank look in front of Massapequa’s net, and she beat Chiefs goalie Rebecca White – but shot it wide left.
But in the 11th minute, Gentile sprung another run up the middle, this time getting it to Hailey Couchman, who fit a low shot past White inside the right post, giving B’ville the lead.
May nearly made it 2-0 with a shot off the crossbar in the 13th minute. Morse said the game’s entire tenor may have changed had that ball found the net, but those early attacks forced Massapequa to step up its own attack, which it did.
By the midway point of the half, the Bees were defending a wave of Chiefs runs, doing so with timely blocks and a couple of big saves from goalie Mackenzie Hanna. And it got a bit of good fortune when Hayley Potorak’s hard shot with 2:30 left in the half hit the right post.
Thus, B’ville clung to that 1-0 lead going to the second half, wondering if, in the last 40 minutes, it could hang on or add to that margin.
To help on the defensive side, Gentile moved back, taking on slightly different roles as the Chiefs charged at them.
For a while, that strategy worked. But then, with 19:57 left, Massapequa earned a corner kick, and Mikayla Pugilese converted off Melanie Hingher’s feed, tying the game 1-1.
B’ville was still trying to regroup when, less than a minute later, the Chiefs again attacked, and Hope Breslin, taking a pass from Julia Hannon, slipped a header past Hanna for the go-ahead goal.
Now forced to change its strategy, the Bees sent attacks whenever it could, but they didn’t happen frequently enough, and when they did, White and the Chiefs’ defenders were able to turn them back.
Breslin then sealed Massapequa’s latest state title by scoring with less than two minutes to play, again assisted by Hannon.
Getting to the title game required B’ville to first work through last Saturday’s state semifinal against Section IX champion Monroe-Woodbury at Tompkins County Community College in Dryden.
And the Bees did pull this off, combining an early conversion with a superb effort from its defense to defeat the Crusaders 1-0.
For all the attention drawn to front-line players like Gentile, May and Couchman, the Bees’ defense proved just as important, and as good, throughout this championship season.
From the back line of sweeper Gabby Piontkowski, Kathryn Weaver and Gabriella George to Hanna in the net, B’ville employed a steady, stingy group that knew how to protect a lead, once it was attained.
And George had a lot to do with that situation against Monroe-Woodbury. Less than 12 minutes into the half, George sent a 30-yard pass to the middle, and when the Crusaders’ defense parted, Carolyn Brussel took George’s feed and ripped it past M-W goalie Gabriella Beltrami.
From there, the Bees could not match what it had done in previous post-season contests and add to that one-goal lead, putting more pressure on the defense to hold firm – which it did.
Throughout the game, M-W was able to find space and run up the wings. At times, the Bees let them do so, only to clog up the middle. This forced the Crusaders to either charge into that muddle, or take low-percentage shots from long distances that flew well off target.
Right to the end, that plan worked, and B’ville moved on to face Massapequa, who had blanked Clarence (Section VI) 2-0 in the other state semifinal – and, as it turned out, would not let the Bees stop them from a three-peat.
Yet while B’ville felt some disappointment about not getting all the way to the top, it didn’t last too long. Instead of long faces and tears, the players and laughed through the post-game ceremonies. Morse said the closeness of this team directly led to all of its success, and no defeat was going to take that away.