It must warm the hearts of the Baldwinsville boys soccer team to know that, in five total encounters against the other three major Class AA title contenders – Cicero-North Syracuse, Fayetteville-Manlius and Liverpool – it has gone a combined 3-1-1.
That one draw was Thursday night’s 0-0 encounter with C-NS at Gillette Field, a game where a victory may have meant both the CNY Counties League National division regular-season title and the top seed for the Section III tournament.
Alas, both honors eluded the Bees, but it still managed to play two games against the Northstars this fall without surrendering a goal, including a 1-0 non-league victory at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium back on Sept. 9.
More than a month later, B’ville arrived at the rematch sporting an eight-game win streak, but C-NS was bent on payback, and would nearly get it in front of a large, loud home crowd.
Through the first half, the two sides kept running at each other. The Bees had the best scoring opportunity, though, as in the 30th minute Nick Gates sprung loose in front of the C-NS let, only to see his point-blank shot go wide.
Moving to the second half, B’ville could not put together a consistent attack, even after rain started falling at the midway point of the half, which made the footing slippery for both teams.
Still, in the 62nd minute, the Bees nearly got the winning goal as Jake Gentile sent a hard shot that required Northstars goalie Morgan Miller to make a diving stop, the best of his eight saves. This followed a pair of close C-NS free kicks by Kyle Tracy that Nick Lindovski managed to grab.
But they would remain scoreless, and as the rain picked up in volume throughout the pair of 10-minute overtime periods, B’ville mostly found itself in a defensive mode. The back line of Erik Ferrari, Connor Ross, Braden Miles and Alex Shepard offered ample protection for Lindovski, who still made 12 saves to preserve his part of the shutout.
As a warm-up for C-NS, the Bees went to Corcoran last Tuesday night and put together one of its most productive efforts of the season, earning its eighth in a row as it blanked the Cougars by a fitting 8-0 margin.
B’ville gained a 3-0 margin by halftime and just kept on finding the net, taking 27 shots overall and having six different players score goals. Connor Lunduski, with two goals and two assists, and Gentile, with two goals and one assist, led the way.
Ross had one goal and one assist as Eric Johnson, Jason Ekure and Alex Pompo also scored. Ferrari picked up two assists, with Alex Burrer, Angelo Vecchio and Evan Ingersoll notching one assist apiece.
When the Class AA playoff pairings were announced, B’ville had the no. 2 seed, and will play in the quarterfinals Friday against the winner of the opening-round game early in the week between West Genesee and Rome Free Academy.
