Charged with the difficult task of containing the top seed and reigning champions in Tuesday night’s Section III Class AA semifinal, the West Genesee girls soccer team produced a tough, hard-nosed effort.
Yet it still wasn’t quite enough as the no. 4 seed Wildcats, who led early in the contest, fell, 2-1, to Cicero-North Syracuse at Christian Brothers Academy’s Alibrandi Stadium.
Just two weeks earlier WG had faced C-NS in Camillus, and gone to overtime scoreless before a big surge of goal-scoring by the Northstars in the 20 minutes of overtime led to a 3-0 Wildcats defeat.
From that game, the Wildcats learned that it could offer a serious resistance if it maintained discipline on the defensive side, and it did so at the outset.
Then, a C-NS defensive turnover led to WG freshman Haley Elsey snapping a shot past Chloe Borasky into the right side of the net just 8:01 into the game, putting her side in front 1-0.
That woke up C-NS, and its attack started to really take form. Wildcat defenders had to chase the likes of Hanna Haven, Ariah Rosas and Kate Wagner all over the field and try to keep them in front.
But that didn’t work for long. Midway through the first half, Haven, taking a right cross from Bryar Cummings, poked in the tying goal. Then, seven minutes later, Haven was back, this time on the left side and angling a shot that glanced off WG goalie Emma Madonna and went home to put the Northstars in front.
Madonna still finished with nine first-half saves. Then Rebecca Rothenberg took over in goal during the second half, recording four saves as back-line players Jessica Dussing, Erin Mills, Valerie Pirro and Mackenzie Negus shut down all of C-NS’s attempts to add to its lead.
At the same time, though, WG found it difficult to get anything past C-NS’s aggressive back line, led by Mary Kate Ordway, Chloe Lonergan, Abby Tolbert and Jessica Foley, and its bid for an upset fell short.
The Northstars went on to face Liverpool in the sectional final, while the Wildcats finished at 7-9-2. Dussing, Pirro, Rothenberg, Haley Dwyer, Brianna Wieszczynski and Mia Fiacchi are among the departing seniors, with Elsey, Madonna, Negus, Mills, Olivia Price and Teresa Petrus part of a solid core of players returning for 2015.
