Rising up to no. 3 in the latest edition of the state Class A rankings, the West Genesee boys lacrosse team could not wait to resume game action in the wake of its 12-11 overtime victory over Jamesville-DeWitt back on April 18.
But the weather forced the Wildcats to wait, anyway.
Heavy rains that fell last Monday night into early Tuesday morning saturated the grass at Baldwinsville’s Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, and rather than try to play through the mud, the two sides agreed to postpone the game a week.
Thus, WG got a mid-season chance to recuperate before setting out on a stretch that would include the trip to B’ville, plus plenty of other big challenges.
One of them was last Friday night’s visit to Cicero-North Syracuse, a game that mostly showcased the Wildcats defense as it set out to shut down the Northstars – and did so in a 10-4 decision.
C-NS had won seven games in a row before a 12-5 loss to resurgent Fayetteville-Manlius earlier in the week, and the momentum the Northstars got from those wins was something it could not regain in the face of WG’s resistance.
Nick Mellen, Chris Sheedy, Jake McCarthy and the rest of the Wildcats’ back line zeroed in on C-NS’s top two scorers, Zach Debottis and Nick Riccardi, and almost shut both of them out. Debottis did not get a point, and all that Riccardi could manage was a lone assist. Nick O’Neill only had to make six saves in the net as he filled in for Ryan Mavretish in goal.
Meanwhile, WG’s attack would have its own lulls. Even after building a 7-3 halftime lead, the Wildcats were shut out in the third quarter, but the defense wasn’t surrendering much, so it had time to find a series of insurance goals, which it did.
David Procopio and Ryan McDonald each earned three-goal hat tricks, with Procopio adding two assists and McDonald a single assist. Mike Fletcher (two goals, one assist) and Nick Cunningham (one goal, two assists) had matching totals of three points as Conor Bartlett also found the net and Tyler Shoults earned an assist.
The make-up with Baldwinsville falls in between Monday night’s first-ever visit from defending Section III Class C champion Cazenovia, who just came off a week where it won four games in six days, and precedes next Friday’s game against the newly-combined Syracuse city squad.
