In a rare twist, it’s the Fayetteville-Manlius girls soccer team that carries higher expectations going to the Section III Class AA playoffs than its male counterparts.
The girls Hornets would have a memorable final week of the regular season capped last Thursday night when, once again, it challenged reigning state champion Baldwinsville, whom it pushed to overtime late in September in a 3-2 defeat.
But that was at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium. This was on F-M’s turf, and even without leading scorer Hannah Knych (15 goals) in the lineup, the Hornets outplayed the Bees for long stretches, though it had to settle for a 1-1 draw.
From the opening kickoff, F-M dictated the game’s fast pace, constantly making a reconstituted B’ville defense (it had just lost Leah Burrer to a season-ending injury) stretch itself.
At the same time, Amelia Haight, Katy Krueger, Abby Obrist, Elena Paolini and the rest of the Hornets’ back line did a brilliant job denying the Bees’ fast group of forwards any kind of space to operate.
Late in the first half, F-M took a 1-0 lead on Rachel Dobricki’s 10th goal of the season, a drive from a right angle into the top left corner of the net. And it nearly held up.
But with 12:16 left a Hornets foul inside the 18-yard box produced a penalty kick that Kelsey Delola converted. Through the rest of regulation and 20 minutes of overtime, it stayed tied, Sabrina Suriani eventually accumulating 10 saves.
Two nights earlier, F-M had fought its way past West Genesee 1-0, completing a season sweep of a Wildcats side it blanked 2-0 back on Sept. 20 in Camillus.
In the rematch, the Hornets, playing its third game in four days, got in front with Ashley Carter’s first-half goal, assisted by Anna Hartzheim, but were shut down the rest of the game.That didn’t matter, though, since F-M’s back line stifled whatever WG tried to establish.
Meanwhile, the F-M boys soccer team had to endure the toughest possible homestretch, with road games against two sides it lost to by equal 1-0 margins at Swan Pond late in September.
First, there was the trip to Liverpool, with the Hornets catching the Warriors at the worst possible time for several reasons, and struggling again to generate offense in a 2-0 defeat.
Two factors favored Liverpool at the outset. It was Senior Night, a festive atmosphere, and more importantly the Warriors, once 10-1, had lost three in a row the previous week.
Bent on continuing Liverpool’s slide, F-M instead found itself constantly thwarted as all eight of its shots got scooped up by Ben White. Chris Szidat had five goals, but allowed Jake Zona to score twice for he Warriors, once in each half.
And now the Hornets went to Baldwinsville Thursday night, where the Bees would beat F-M 3-0, a more decisive outcome than the 1-0 decision when the two teams first met at Swan Pond.
They were still 1-0 in the rematch going to the second half, but B’ville got away, overcoming Szidat’s seven saves as Tyler Johnson scored twice, with Josh Price getting one goal and assisting on one of Johnson’s tallies.
Given the no. 4 seed in the Class AA sectional bracket, the F-M boys face no. 5 seed Nottingham in Thursday’s quarterfinals, and a win could mean another shot at upending B’ville, the top seed, in the semifinals.
Just five teams qualified for the girls sectional Class AA tournament, and F-M, as the no. 2 seed, will try to beat no. 3 seed West Genesee for a third time this fall in the semifinals early next week.
