For all they had done during the regular season, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool girls soccer teams had emerged as the front-runners to earn the Section III Class AA title, which the Warriors have won each of the last two years.
As the most formidable obstacle to that three-peat, the state Class AA no. 14-ranked Northstars have not let down since beating Liverpool 2-0 on Oct. 4, having embarked on a nine-game unbeaten streak that includes eight wins and just one draw.
Two of those wins came early last week. As the follow-up to a tough 2-0 win over Oneonta Oct. 12 at Archie Hall Stadium, the Northstars went to Liverpool High School Stadium and got another shutout, blanking Owego 8-0.
Hanna Haven, with two goals and three assists, anchored a potent attack where Ariah Rosas picked up the three-goal hat trick and C-NS had a 5-0 lead by halftime. Reid Garner, Olivia King and Mary Kate Ordway also scored, with Marissa Rio adding an assist.
Then the Northstars hit double digits last Tuesday, against the combined Syracuse City squad, where a 10-0 victory was attained with Rosas having the game of her young career.
Up 4-0 by halftime, C-NS kept getting something from Rosas, who didn’t stop until she had five goals, giving her eight in two games. King found the net twice, while Rio had one goal and one assist. Sam Foley and Justice Frazee had the other goals as Haven again picked up a pair of assists.
Liverpool had gone through that same weekend work as C-NS, with the same positive results as it beat Owego 3-0 on Oct. 12 at Archie Hall Stadium and then topped Oneonta by that same margin a day later back on its home turf.
Against Oneonta, the Warriors took a 2-0 halftime lead, and added it behind a well-balanced attack that saw Alexis Kline and Emma Geyer each finish with one goal and one assist. Marissa Lombard picked up the other goal.
Returning to league play on Wednesday night, the state AA no. 16-ranked Warriors doubled that output against Oswego at LHS Stadium, putting together a 6-0 shutout of the Buccaneers.
Morgan Wright led the way as Liverpool gained a 4-0 lead by halftime, Wright eventually earning a three-goal hat trick, the first of her varsity career, and adding an assist.
Kline picked up one goal and one assist, while Ore Akinpelu and Julia Heberger stepped up to score goals. Farrah Ziaie gained two assists, with Geyer and Lombard earning one assist apiece.
Then Liverpool closed out the regular season with a 2-0 shutout of the same Whitesboro team it beat 3-0 earlier this fall. One goal in each half proved ample as Geyer and Ore Akinpelu scored, with Leanne Barnard adding an assist.
But when the Class AA sectional playoff pairings came out, the Warriors received quite a surprise. A series of tie-breakers allowed three teams – C-NS, Baldwinsville and Fayetteville-Manlius – to get seeded ahead of Liverpool.
Add CBA (who got the no. 2 seed) to the mix, and the Warriors were all the way down to the no. 5 seed and would need to go on the road Wednesday to take on F-M, the no. 4 seed, whom it beat in last year’s title game.
And a win might mean that Liverpool gets C-NS, the top seed, in the semifinals, so long as the Northstars make it past the winner of Tuesday’s West Genesee-Utica Proctor opening-round match.
