Having endured its toughest week of the season, with three close contests (one of which went to overtime), the Cicero-North Syracuse girls soccer team still won them all and locked down the top seed for its Section III Class AA title defense.
When the Northstars visited West Genesee last Tuesday, it had just gone through a pair of 3-2 matches, holding off Baldwinsville on Oct. 9 and rallying past Whitesboro two days later.
Now, against a Wildcats team it beat 4-0 on Sept. 27, C-NS could not get any goals in regulation, relying on a surge in the 20 minutes of overtime to prevail 3-0.
During those first 80 minutes, the Northstars had its fair share of good opportunities, only to see them swallowed up by a tough WG defense anchored by goalies Rebecca Rothenberg and Emma Madonna, who combined for 12 saves.
Somehow, C-NS stayed patient through all this, and in the first OT period got on the board. When the Wildcats brought up players to try and counter, the Northstars took advantage of this by adding two more goals in the second extra frame.
Hanna Haven, Ariah Rosas and Mary Kate Ordway picked up the goals, with Marissa Rio adding an assist. Roaring back to top form, the Northstars’ defense held WG to just three shots all night.
As that went on, Liverpool also went to overtime in a scoreless game on the road, doing so at Fayetteville-Manlius, but that game would stay 0-0 all the way to the final whistle.
Liverpool would get a fair amount of opportunities, but the high winds, combined with the Field Turf that F-M plays on, caused both teams to have problems controlling the ball.
It took Julia Richey recording seven saves for the Warriors to preserve its end of the shutout, while Liverpool put six shots on net, but got nothing past the Hornets’ tandem of Haley Everding and Caroline Rabe.
On Thursday, Liverpool saw its game with West Genesee delayed by lightning in the area, and ultimately postponed.
They would resume on Saturday afternoon at LHS Stadium with the score 0-0. And it stayed that way until the second half, when Ore Akinpelu got around the Wildcats’ defenders and slipped a shot past Rebecca Rothenberg that proved the difference in a 1-0 Warriors victory. Richey got another shutout, stopping all six WG shots she faced.
By that point, C-NS was done with its regular season, having stomped past Camden 8-1 on Friday night at Archie Hall Stadium.
In her last regular-season home game, Haven dazzled, scoring twice and adding three assists, while Ordway and Bryar Cummings also had two-goal outings. Rio had one goal and one assist as Julia King added a single goal and Olivia King joined Ashley Salvett in the assist column.
The sectional Class AA tournament has just eight teams. Thus, it’s straight to the quarterfinal round, where top seed C-NS meets no. 8 seed Central Square Thursday night at Archie Hall Stadium at 6:30, just as Liverpool, the no. 3 seed, hosts no. 6 seed Auburn in that same round.
