Hitting the halfway mark of its regular season, the Liverpool field hockey team still does not have a blemish on its record.
However, that fact nearly changed in Saturday’s exciting final of the Holland Patent Fall Classic Fayetteville-Manlius had the Warriors in a two-goal deficit, but Liverpool stormed all the way back to pull out a 4-3 victory.
Rarely tested through its first eight games, Liverpool was stunned in the first half of the title game. F-M used goals by Kerry O’Connor, Kaitlyn Gualtieri and Emma Hebert to roar to a 3-1 lead. Only Emma Lamison’s goal late in the half kept it from being worse.
Gradually, the Warriors picked up its own pressure and notched consecutive goals from Holly Clark and Danielle Abold in the second half, tying it 3-3. Then, with just 58 seconds left in regulation, Lamison returned and, on a Warriors penalty corner, slapped the ball past F-M goalie Abby Cunningham for the game-winner.
A day earlier, Liverpool had dismissed Whitesboro 5-0 in the opening round. Lamison incurred most of the damage, notching a three-goal hat trick and adding an assist as Clark added one goal and one assist and Abold scored, too. F-M had to beat host Holland Patent 2-1 to get its shot at the Warriors in the finals.
The Warriors had moved to 7-0 with last Tuesday’s 3-0 shutout of East Syracuse-Minoa, the second time in September that it had taken out the Spartans.
Clark earned two goals, while Mary Fadden also converted and Lamison contributed an assist. Liverpool’s swarming attack had 19 shots, as compared to ESM’s two.
With the F-M scare behind them, the Warriors take on Cato-Meridian and Auburn, and will make up the rescheduled game with rival Cicero-North Syracuse, too.
