On the same field where the Westhill boys lacrosse team suffered its biggest heartache, it achieved as big a victory as it has ever attained.
When Owen Matukas scored in the first minute of overtime of Friday night’s Section III Class C semifinal at Liverpool High School Stadium, he did much more than give the Warriors a 10-9 victory over Jamesville-DeWitt.
For starters, it gave Westhill a happy memory 12 months after it exited this same field on the wrong end of a double-OT decision to eventual state champions Christian Brothers Academy in the sectional Class D final.
But it went beyond that point, because the significance of this game had a lot to do with who the Warriors beat.
J-D had won nine consecutive sectional titles entering this game. The last time anyone had beaten them in any round of the sectional playoffs was 2008, when the Westhill players were still in grade school.
This decade of Red Rams dominance in the local ranks created an aura that the Warriors were determined to puncture, and it took an all-out effort, plus plenty of patience, to pull it out.
Early on, it looked like the same old Red Rams story as it blanked Westhill in the first quarter and built a 4-0 advantage. But the Warriors, playing without one of its top front-line players in Luke McAnaney, made up the deficit in a matter of minutes during the second period.
Four straight goals, the last of them by Jack Grooms, tied it, 4-4, and even though Pat Murad answered and J-D took a 5-4 lead to halftime, the game’s resilient pattern was set.
The Warriors’ didn’t flinch, even when the Rams scored twice in the first 22 seconds of the third quarter. Instead, it blanked J-D the rest of the period, setting up a memorable finish.
Midway through the fourth quarter, goals by Johnny Keib and Griffin Cook stretched the Red Rams’ lead to 9-6. Yet Mike Herrera answered Cook’s goal 11 seconds later, and the comeback was on.
With four minutes left, Charlie Bolesh cut the margin to 9-8. Westhill got the ball back, worked it around and, with 24 seconds to play, got it back to Bolesh, who put the ball past Liam Coyle to tie it.
J-D had a chance to win at the end of regulation, but the Warriors stopped it, and with all of the momentum snared the OT faceoff.
Wasting little time, the Warriors gave it to Matukas, who charged from the left side and, at the 49-second mark. delivered the goal for Westhill’s only lead of the game – the only one that mattered.
Ecstatic as the Warriors were, it still has one more game to win if it want its first-ever sectional title. On this same LHS Stadium turf next Wednesday, Westhill faces top seed Homer, who beat Carthage 9-3 in the other semifinal and edged the Warriors 10-9 when they met early in May.
Also in pursuit of a first-ever sectional title in Class D, Marcellus met a far different fate in its sectional semifinal at East Syracuse Minoa, where it lost, 12-4, to CBA.
This was the same Brothers side the Mustangs beat 7-6 in overtime earlier this season. Since then, CBA, with a young roster and few senior starters, had improved plenty, especially on defense, though it wasn’t evident right away.
Marcellus, the no. 2 seed, grabbed an early 2-1 lead, and when Gabe Van Order charged in and scored in the waning seconds of the first quarter to double the Mustangs’ advantage, it appeared to have a grip on the game.
Instead, the Brothers seized control by blanking Marcellus in the second quarter, forcing a series of mistakes and, crucially, getting a go-ahead goal from Wyatt Auyer just 3.1 seconds before halftime, exactly what Van Order had done before.
When Matt Connell converted 1:43 into the third quarter to tie it 4-4, it proved to be the Mustangs’ last goal of the season as Colin Kelly answered a minute later, giving CBA the lead for good.
What followed, over the remaining 21-plus minutes, was Marcellus proving unable to move the ball out of its own end and CBA patiently wearing them down.
It was still a close game when Sam Bonacci scored with 9:01 to play, making it 7-4, and Auyer hit on his third goal 67 seconds later, igniting a final flourish for the Brothers as Kelly and Ryan Mackenzie would also score three times, CBA advancing to the sectional final against top seed General Brown, who held off Cazenovia 13-10 in the other semifinal.
