Many of the area’s girls soccer teams had gone through varying degrees of success during the early portion of the season, some more established than others.
Of them, Jamesville-DeWitt kept the best mark, remaining undefeated as it blasted past Syracuse 10-1 last Thursday afternoon, the second time in as many weeks it reached double digits, having done so Sept. 6 against Auburn.
Here, Grace Dimkopoulos had a three-goal hat trick, with Sydney Thomas scoring twice and getting an assist. Lindsey Hildreth had three assists and Hayley Quackenbush two assists as single goals went to Tonia Kousmanidis, Sydney Balotin, Megan Baker, Grace Thomas and Mia Antonucci.
A day later, J-D handled Fulton 6-0, taking 31 shots overall and getting a pair of goals from Baker to lead a well-balanced attack. Dimkopoulos had one goal and one assist, with Hildreth, Emma Silverstein and Mona Osman also converting. Thomas, Bridge and Quackenbush had one assist apiece.
Frustration was the theme last Tuesday night as, at home, Fayetteville-Manlius and Christian Brothers Academy both took painful 1-0 defeats – the Hornets to Cicero-North Syracuse, the Brothers to Westhill.
The Hornets kept C-NS off the board for 79-plus minutes. Just when it looked like it was going to overtime, though, the Northstars made one more attack and, with 30 seconds left in regulation, freshman Madelyn Jackson fit it past Sabrina Suriani for the only goal of the match.
At least, in CBA’s case, it went to overtime before getting nipped by Westhill, who shared the state Class B title a season ago.
All through the first and second half, both sides had all kinds of opportunities, yet could not cash them in. Westhill ran into a determined CBA defense and was unable to solve Abby Benware, who accumulated 19 saves.
The Brothers would have its share of chances to win, yet all 12 of its shots got scooped up by Lauren Bendall, and it stayed 0-0 through one 10-minute OT period.
Only in the last minute of the second OT did CBA blink, Westhill working the ball around until Ciarra Rudnick, off a feed from Sophia Caron, slipped a shot past Benware with 35 seconds left.
It was F-M able to recover from these close defeats with an impressive effort in last Thursday’s game against Liverpool, the Hornets not letting up until it had put away the Warriors 4-1.
Less than seven minutes into the game, Hannah Knych caught a pass from Rachel Dobricki in mid-stride, charged in and scored, the only tally for either team in the first half.
Things didn’t break open until midway through the second half, when a series of passes, the last of them by Knych, led to Hartzheim’s goal. Less than a minute later, Knych fed Dobricki for a third goal, and Ashley Carter added a free-kick conversion with 4:22 left.
Then, on Saturday, F-M finally won a 1-0 match, this one over New Hartford, with Hartzheim breaking the logjam with her second-half goal, assisted by Abigail Obrist. Suriani only had to make three saves.
Back on Friday, CBA, recovering from its Westhill loss, handled Phoenix 4-1 as Mari Saya got one goal and one assist, with Tatum Kohlbrenner, Amanda Winn and Katy Stanard also finding the net.
