All through the last 12 months, all of the work done by the Liverpool girls soccer team, either with each other or with various clubs, was geared toward one objective – getting back to the Section III Class AA championship game and winning it.
On Saturday night at SUNY-Cortland, the Warriors have that chance – and best of all, it comes against the opponent (Baldwinsville) that took the title from them in this same round 12 months ago.
They got to this sectional finals rematch in vastly different manners, though.
While unbeaten, top-seeded and state no. 7-ranked B’ville survived a tense battle with no. 5 seed Fayetteville-Manlius in Tuesday’s semifinal at Christian Brothers Academy’s Alibrandi Stadium , no. 2 seed Liverpool jumped all over no. 3 seed Rome Free Academy at Chittenango High School and roared to a 6-0 win over the Black Knights.
The state no. 14-ranked Warriors sensed a weakness RFA’s defense and spent much of the first half breaking through the back line, Liverpool not letting up until it had built a 4-0 advantage, well out of the Black Knights’ reach.
Two more goals followed in the second half as Bri Kovarik and Lynsey Roth each scored twice, with Kovarik contributing an assist. Carli Kovarik contributed one goal and one assist as Emily Dorr notched two assists. Morgan Mitchell picked up the other goal and Abeba Haley also earned an assist.
Meanwhile, Baldwinsville nearly got pushed to overtime by Fayetteville-Manlius, needing Simone Neivel’s goal with 1:52 left in regulation to prevail 1-0 and set up the latest sectional title clash between the Bees and Warriors.
And so Liverpool needs to prove that the adage involving the difficulty of beating someone three times in a season holds up, since it lost to B’ville 3-0 and 2-1 in their two September encounters 16 days apart.
