No matter what the records might say, or how the seeding might turn out for the upcoming Section III playoffs, there’s no denying how close the competition is in Class AA boys soccer, almost every night.
Liverpool has undergone plenty of tight battles while maintaining a no. 7 state ranking, and would put that on the line in a big showdown with defending champion Fayetteville-Manlius last Tuesday night at Swan Pond.
And it would turn out to be the most satisfying victory of the regular season for the Warriors, who blanked the Hornets 2-0, a result different in every way from the 6-0 defeat Liverpool suffered on this same turf in last year’s Section III Class AA quarterfinal.
Getting a goal in the first half took massive pressure off the Warriors, and it continued to hold the initiative most of the night, its defense limiting F-M to just three shots, all of them scooped by Ben Bowers. Thus, goals by Jeff Meyers and Evan Vogue held up, and the Warriors’ hold on a possible Class AA top seed tightened.
What followed, on Thursday afternoon, was the Warriors meeting much-improved Henninger and settling for a 0-0 draw with the Black Knights on the LHS grass field that used to host all varsity soccer games before the Field Turf at LHS Stadium was installed.
At 8-4-2 coming into the game, Henninger had already shown it could hang close with the more noted AA programs, and again did so here. Through 80 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes of sudden-death overtime, Liverpool held the Black Knights to two shots on net, but also got stymied, too, managing just five shots, all of them stopped by Henninger goalie Moo Kpo Lo.
Another state-ranked team, Fulton (no. 14 in Class A), visited LHS Stadium on Saturday afternoon, but the Warriors won here, edging the Red Raiders 2-1.
Abe Haley and George Betobaum each netted goals in the first half, with Meyers and A.J. Sinclair earning assists. Up 2-0 at halftime, Liverpool saw Fulton get on the board with Austin Wilde’s second-half tally, but get nothing more.
Cicero-North Syracuse ended a 10-day mid-season hiatus by venturing to Nottingham last Monday night. Less than a week after Liverpool earned a 1-1 draw against that same foe on that same turf, the Northstars also ended even with the Bulldogs, this time a 2-2 decision.
It marked the eighth time in 12 games that the margin in a C-NS game was one goal or less. Also, it was Nottingham’s fifth draw of the season, which kept it undefeated as it held an 8-0-5 mark at night’s end.
What made it more frustrating, from the Northstars’ perspective, was that it led Nottingham 2-1 at halftime, having broken through the Bulldogs’ defenses twice as Nick Bitz and Austin Mizell earned the goals, while Lucas Roberts added an assist.
Trailing 2-1, Nottingham got back even in the second half, having seen Abdi Maalo earn one goal and assist on the other, from Claude Tuyishimire. Jean Claude Rukundo assisted on Maalo’s goal as, in 20 tense minutes of overtime, neither side could win it, Matt Siegel getting 12 saves to match Bulldogs counterpart Bhuwan Basnet.
Returning home for Senior Night at the Gillette Road Complex on Thursday, C-NS made it a happy one, shutting out Corcoran 5-0.
It was already 3-0 by halftime, and the Northstars added to it by having five different players – Mizell, Bitz, Ryan Gilbert, Lucas Roberts and Matt Pike – earn those five goals. Jason Hange joined Roberts and Mizell in the assist column.
With no time to rest, C-NS, on Friday, hosted a Utica Proctor team that had pushed both Liverpool and Fayetteville-Manlius to overtime in recent weeks. And the Raiders would also get close here – but it ended in regulation, and the Northstars prevailed 1-0.
Working through wind and rain, neither team scored in the first half. But while C-NS held Proctor to three shots, it kept pushing against Raiders goalie Noah Jones, who made six saves, and finally broke through when Matt Pike netted an unassisted goal that made the difference.
At 7-3-4 on the season, C-NS would make its own trip to Swan Pond to face F-M Wednesday night before closing the regular season Friday against West Genesee at Gillette. Liverpool would have its own game against West Genesee on Tuesday in Camillus before Friday’s big battle with Nottingham.
