Much of the 80 minutes of Monday night’s Section III Class AA final was a defensive clinic authored by the Baldwinsville boys soccer team, who knew that protecting its own net was the best way it could keep its title from unbeaten, state no. 1-ranked Fayetteville-Manlius.
Only for a moment did that resistance crack – but that’s all it took for the Hornets to prevail, 1-0, at Liverpool High School Stadium and earn its first outright sectional title in nearly a decade.
Five times in the previous seven years, B’ville and F-M had met in the sectional finals. Each time, the Bees had made it through to the state tournament at the Hornets’ experience.
This version turned out different, though, the Hornets getting the only goal it needed when senior Tysen Tresness scored on a unique free kick with 12:41 to play.
F-M head coach Jeff Hammond called it a “heads-up play”. Tresness himself described it as “cheeky”. Both were correct.
To that point, anything the Hornets tried against a terrific B’ville defense had fizzled out, from long passes to runs up the middle to a handful of set pieces.
B’ville goalie Nick Lindovski had set a tone with his sliding save on a Tresness shot from the left point early in the first half. Then, midway through the half, F-M’s frustrations continued when Tresness thought he got tripped inside the 18-yard box, but no foul was called.
By the second half, it was clear that Lindovski, with help from the likes of defenders Connor Ross, Evan Ingersoll, Evan Smith, Alex Burrer, Mike Morris and Alex Sheperd, was not going to let anything get past them – unless, that is, an element of surprise got involved.
When the Bees committed a foul on the left side with 13 minutes left, it set up a Hornets free kick 20 yards out, from a left angle.
Normally, with such a shot, a forward like Tresness will wait until his teammates are set up at the point, perhaps to receive a pass, or until defenders have set up their wall 10 yards away, something that usually requires officials to step in and give the shooter the appropriate space.
In this instance, though, Tresness scrapped all of the normal moves.
“I had taken free kicks quickly before,” he said. “But this was a spur-of-the-moment play.”
Before his teammates could set up, before the Bees could set up its wall, and before anyone, including Lindovski, was in position, Tresness curved the ball inside the top right corner of the net for the biggest goal of his high-school career- so far, anyway.
The stunned Bees could not answer. All game long, F-M’s defense had sprung into action any time a B’ville player stepped into F-M’s end. The Hornets’ defenders continued their first-rate work down the stretch, not letting any attempts get close to goalie Ben Obrist.
Bees fans did get one more highlight-reel play when Morris, on the back line, made a spectacular stop on a possible clinching goal with 2:15 left, but time ran out before the Bees could pull even.
Now, at the end of a 13-4-1 campaign, B’ville will see seniors like Lindovski, Ross, Burrer, Nick Gates, Erik Ferrari, Austin Dukat and Angelo Vecchio depart. But the likes of Ingersoll, Morris, Smith and Sheperd come back in 2015, with the Bees dead-set on reclaiming the sectional title it won six out of seven years before F-M snatched it from them.
