Match up an eight-time sectional champion with an 8-10-1 opponent and the result would seem obvious – except that, for the Jamesville-DeWitt girls soccer team, nothing about Tuesday night’s Class A regional game at Fulton against Mohonasen proved simple.

Newly appointed as the state’s top-ranked team, the Red Rams surrendered an early lead, then built a big second-half margin before hanging on down the stretch to beat the Warriors by a score of 5-4.

For years, J-D’s regional games featured a traditional foe like Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake. This time, though, it was a new face in Mohonasen, the school from Rotterdam who had risen from a no. 4 seed to earn its first-ever Section II Class A title, the Warriors advancing in the final against Averill Park through penalty kicks.

Any notion that Mohonasen was afraid of the new setting and increased competition dissipated by the time the first half was over. Even as Alex Catanzarite and Alex Epifani were putting the Rams on the board, the Warriors answered and pushed the game to a 2-2 halftime deadlock.

But having found plenty of gaps in Mohonasen’s defenses, J-D seemed to get away in the second half. Catanzarite worked her total to a three-goal hat trick, while Epifani scored twice in between and Lainey Foti got credit for an assist.

All of this gave J-D a 5-2 lead, but the Warriors still were not done done, twice finding the net in the last 10 minutes and requiring the Rams to make nervous stops down the stretch in order to keep its state championship hopes alive.

Glad to have that game behind them, J-D goes Ogdensburg Free Academy on Saturday to face Massena (Section X) in the Class A regional final with a berth in the state final four on the line.