Once the Baldwinsville boys soccer team entered the Section III Class AA playoffs, all of the safety and protection of a 15-1 regular season that included 14 shutouts went away.
And the top-seeded Bees nearly saw it all end in the quarterfinal round, pushed to overtime by no. 8 seed Rome Free Academy Friday night at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium before it pulled out a 1-0 decision over the Black Knights.
By the time B’ville took the field, all of the other AA quarterfinals were complete, with the home teams – no. 2 seed Liverpool, no. 3 seed Cicero-North Syracuse and no. 4 seed Fayetteville-Manlius – all prevailing.
In each of these instances, the opposition was a familiar Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division foe it had faced twice in the regular season.
Rome Free Academy was outside the SCAC Metro realm, but did play B’ville Aug. 30 in the finals of the Bees’ season-opening tournament. B’ville won that game 3-0.
Nearly two months later, the rematch was much closer. As expected, the Bees had most of the scoring opportunities, but through the 80 minutes of regulation were constantly thwarted.
It was a spectacular effort from Black Knights goalkeeper Chase Coluccio, who amassed 13 saves and kept the game 0-0. RFA also had a handful of chances, too, making Nate Hanna earn four saves.
For the first time all season, the Bees found itself in OT, consisting of a pair of 15-minutes periods where the first goal wins. In the playoffs, if still tied at the end of the OT’s, it goes to penalty kicks.
But B’ville never let it even get to a second extra period. Again attacking, Josh Price drew in the defense and then passed it to Jason Hahn, who flicked a shot past Coluccio to end it.
The Bees would now face F-M in the sectional semifinals Tuesday night at Jamesville-DeWitt, a round earlier than in 2017, when the Hornets prevailed in the title game in OT on that same J-D turf.
Now, only one of them will get there, with a final against Liverpool or C-NS awaiting whichever team made it through.
Meanwhile, the B’ville girls soccer team, with the top seed in the five-team sectional Class AA bracket, rested, healed and practiced throughout the week before finding out Saturday that it would face C-NS in its sectional semifinal Wednesday at Chittenango.
The Northstars, who beat RFA 5-1 to get this far, would try to avenge two regular-season defeats to the Bees, with the winner going to the title game this weekend at SUNY-Cortland against F-M or West Genesee.
