Wind, rain, wild cloud patterns — these are the sorts of unpredictable factors that can trip up even the best of teams, unless they have the patience and poise to deal with it.
Baldwinsville’s boys soccer Bees have that quality. What’s more, the humbling it took Sept. 4 at Rochester McQuaid (a 4-1 defeat, with all the Knights’ goals scored in the first half) showed B’ville that it couldn’t let one mistake turn into a disaster.
The Bees applied all these myriad lessons last Tuesday night at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium and won its rematch with the Liverpool Warriors by a score of 3-1.
Those same two teams had played four days earlier, at Liverpool, a 0-0 draw. However, B’ville played that first game without star senior midfielder Nate Bourdeau, who is still healing from injuries to both of his feet suffered during the summer.
Bourdeau was back for the rematch, on a home turf rendered soggy by early-week rains — so much so that the sidelines had standing water, which some of the players slid in during the course of the night.
Amid wild first-half conditions that included wind gusts and at least two downpours, Liverpool went out in front when, 7:22 into the game, Charles Schoening took a nice feed from Allesio Vitale and crushed a shot to the top left corner that B.J. Goodwin had no chance to stop.
Instead of getting flustered by that goal (as it did against McQuaid), B’ville regrouped and started to attack with more vigor. This paid off in the 18th minute, when, amid a scramble up front, Mike Carroll fired a hard shot that glanced off a Warrior defender just enough to elude James Taber and find the net.
The game was still 1-1 when, in the 25th minute, Bourdeau was fouled 25 yards from the net. Given a free kick, Bourdeau, despite his sore feet, hit a perfect shot that flew past Taber inside the top left corner of the net, putting the Bees ahead for good.
Rain let up before the second half, and with the wind now at its back, the Bees controlled the tempo, staying patient as it looked for some cushion.
Midway through the half, in the 58th minute, Kyle Rogers, working from the right side, flung a low pass to the middle, where Carroll again converted, producing the final two-goal margin.
Taber, aside from those plays, had a solid performance, earning eight saves, most of them up close. Goodwin had five saves as B’ville’s defense, after allowing that early tally (its first to a Section III foe this year), blanked Liverpool over the last 72-plus minutes.
