Without a sectional title for six years, the Baldwinsville girls soccer team is bent on changing that fact — as evidenced by the way it dominated its own Kickoff Classic last weekend at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium.
From a 13-5-3 team that fell to Liverpool in last year’s Section III Class AA semifinal, the Bees graduated just five seniors, including Katelyn Charbonneau and Emma Albert.
However, the returning talent is vast, including Jen Fabian, Alexis Coughlin, Quincey Spagnoletti, Meghan Haney, Katie Gildemeyer, Jackie Firenze and Ali Nagle.
And the Bees got an extra boost when, in the off-season, it snagged Nicole Close, the one-time Cicero-North Syracuse standout who transferred.
All the pieces, familiar and new, were on display when B’ville began its own tournament last Friday with an 8-0 rout of Ithaca.
Haney was the lone Bees player to score twice. Coughlin, who played in the Empire State Games this summer, picked up a goal and two assists.
Close’s debut included a single goal, something shared by Spagnoletti, Fabian, Sam Yaro and Jamie Schmidt. Nagle and Emma Firenze joined Spagnoletti in the assist column.
Much more defense was required in Saturday’s final against Westhill, who had topped Saratoga Springs 3-2 in the other opening-round match.
But with new goalie Casey Chiesa earning seven saves, the Bees blanked the Warriors 3-0. Fabian, Nagle and Spagnoletti each took turns scoring, with Amanda Ingersoll earning her first assist of the season.
B’ville plays its first road game of the season Wednesday, at Rome Free Academy, then is off until Tuesday’s battle with Liverpool, their first encounter since last year’s playoff defeat.
As for the B’ville boys team, it took on a new role — that of defending Section III Class AA champions.
Having used an overtime victory over Fayetteville-Manlius last November to finally reach that elusive summit, the Bees enter 2008 with the full belief that it could happen again.
Sure, stars like Nate Bourdeau, Colin Hack, Mike Carroll, Adam Jones and Jamie Parmele have graduated. But the returning cast is stellar, including four players – P.J. Goodwin, Kyle Rogers, Austin Buckley and Ryan Evans — that played in this summer’s Empire State Games with the Central region scholastic men’s team.
For the first time in several years, the Bees did not open with its Kickoff Classic. Instead, it went to Red Creek last Friday and fought its way to a 1-0 victory.
This was a high-quality win, mainly because Red Creek is a long-time Section V power that just comes off a 2007 campaign where it won the state Class C championship.
Red Creek’s defense played strong all afternoon, keeping the Bees off the board until Sean St. Denis took a feed from Anthony Vecchio and pushed it home.
That single goal held up because the Bees’ defense remains stellar, so effective that Red Creek managed just three direct shots on Goodwin, all of them stopped.
For that B’ville Kickoff Classic this weekend, the Bees are hosting Liverpool Thursday at 6 p.m., just after F-M takes on Jamesville-DeWitt. B’ville then meets F-M, a rematch of last year’s sectional final, Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m.
