On the way to all the glory it attained the last three years, the Westhill boys soccer team always had to get past Cazenovia to earn the Section III Class B title.
Each time, the Warriors won, and it would again try to conquer the Lakers when the two had their lone regular-season encounter last Tuesday night at the Sean Googin Sports Complex.
Westhill was 2-0 and Cazenovia was 3-0, but from the outset it was the Warriors in control, overcoming the occasional spectacular effort by the Lakers’ Joe Spires to record a 3-1 victory.
Controlling long stretches of the game and patiently waiting to convert its many opportunities.Westhill didn’t get rattled when, less than a minute after Rusden Bryant scored in the 25th minute to give the Warriors a 1-0 edge, Spires took the ball at midfield, tore through several defenders and then fired a hard shot from the right that Westhill goalie Ian Prebish had no chance to stop.
Right before halftime, Westhill took the lead for good when Andrew Centore fired home a shot fed from the left by Bo BenYehuda. Then the margin doubled in the second half thanks to Bryant, whose header off a BenYehuda corner kick just trickled across the goal line.
With 1:25 left, Cazenovia was awarded a free kick in its own end. Spires took it and delivered a long shot that rode the wind and flew past Prebish –but a Lakers foul inside the box negated the goal.
Skaneateles now would get its chance against Westhill on Thursday night, and this proved more difficult for the Warriors as it had to go to the wire to pull out a 3-2 decision over that other group of Lakers.
They would go back and forth in the first half, with playoff-level intensity as, twice, Skaneateles solved the Westhill defense, Tylar Moss getting one goal and assisting on the other by Noah O’Connor.
However, Westhill’s defense settled down in the second half, blanking Skaneateles, while it moved back in front and stayed there, having seen BenYehuda, Dan Carkner and Phil Bogan net one goal apiece. Each of Prebish’s eight saves proved important.
Before that, Skaneateles had romped past Phoenix 9-0, O’Connor going to the forefront with a three-goal hat trick, plus an assist. Moss and Owen Cheney both had two goals and one assist, with Alex Arefyev and Colin Gaglione earning the other goals.
