Tysen Tresness had waited long enough. So had the rest of the Fayetteville-Manlius boys soccer team, who had gone nearly a decade without winning a Section III Class AA championship all by itself.
And because Tresness wasn’t patient at a critical juncture, the Hornets were able to beat Baldwinsville 1-0 and claim that outright sectional title Monday night at Liverpool High School Stadium.
For Tresness and his fellow seniors, getting back at the Bees on the same Liverpool turf where B’ville beat them 2-0 in last year’s sectional final was satisfying enough.
“It was nice to get some revenge,” said Tresness.
“It was a great team effort,” said head coach Jeff Hammond, whose state no. 1-ranked Hornets improved to 19-0. “To stay unbeaten and win a sectional title says a great deal about their character.”
Five times in the previous seven years, F-M had arrived at this sectional final, only to see B’ville thwart them. But Tresness ended the Bees’ spell when he scored on a unique free kick with 12:41 to play.
Hammond, whose Hornets claimed the 13th sectional title of his tenure and 25th in program history, called the goal 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 and Evan Ingersoll, 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 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, senior Christian Bagabo, junior Connor Snow and sophomore Seth Epling 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 as time ran out.
Hammond said it was one of his team’s best all-around efforts, and it helped to have midfielders Adam Bem and Connor Treglia back from injury to bring the roster back to full strength.
The 19-0 Hornets are far from done. On Saturday at 1 p.m., F-M comes back to LHS Stadium to face Section II champion Shenendehowa in the Class AA regional final, with the winner advancing to the Nov. 15-16 state final four at Middletown.
“We have a great resilience with this team,” said Tresness. “We can go far.”
