The Jamesville-DeWitt boys soccer team knows both the glory and cruelty of the Section III Class A playoffs.
Along with a pair of sectional titles, the Red Rams have also seen its season end in quick and brutal manners, though none might top what happened in Tuesday night’s Class A semifinal at East Syracuse Minoa High School Stadium, where J-D’s title reign ended in a 2-1 overtime defeat to Fulton.
As the defending sectional champions, the no. 2-seeded Rams had cruised through the first two rounds, beating Camden and Vernon-Verona-Sherrill by a combined 10-1 margin. Meanwhile, Fulton, the no. 3 seed, routed Indian River 8-2 and fought past ESM 2-1 to get this far.
In their lone regular-season meeting in early October, J-D had won on its home field, 2-0, and again it shut out the Red Raiders in the first half, but Fulton’s defense was just as stingy, too, leaving it 0-0 going into the break.
Early in the second half, Jordan VanStry found the net and gave the Rams a 1-0 lead. Given the way it was turning back all of Fulton’s charges, that one-goal margin nearly held up.
But with eight minutes to play, J-D got too aggressive, fouling a Red Raiders player inside the 18-yard box. Austin Wilde sent the ensuing penalty kick past D.J. Newman, and the game went to overtime 1-1.
Things got worse for the Rams when an accumulation of yellow cards forced J-D to go the rest of the way with 10 players. At the five-minute mark, Fulton attacked again, and again the Rams fouled inside the 18.
So it all rode on Newman trying to stop Ian Devendorf’s penalty kick. With the tension building, Devendorf’s shot found the net, and Fulton, who has not won a sectional title since 2008, advanced to its first final in four years against top seed Fowler, who handled New Hartford 4-1 in the other semifinal at ESM.
Not far away, at Nottingham High School, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls soccer team took a no. 3 seed into its sectional Class AA semifinal against no. 2 seed and defending champion Liverpool, and despite an all-out effort, the Hornets’ season ended with a 3-1 defeat to the Warriors.
F-M had lost to Liverpool twice in the regular season, but the last of those games was a tense 1-0 battle on Oct. 10, so it believed that it had figured out how to defend the Warriors.
Everything was working until the 17th minute, when Alex Bittel drilled a 25-yard shot past F-M goalie Sabrina Suriani. Seconds later, though, the Hornets tied it, 1-1, when it grabbed the ensuing kickoff, charged toward the net and saw Mirren Galway beat Julia Richey.
They were still 1-1 when, 2:11 into the second half, Liverpool’s Bri Kovarik made a sensational individual play, stripping the ball from an F-M player 30 yards from the net and then turning around, dribbling past two more Hornets defenders and firing a hard shot to the top of the net that Suriani had no chance to stop.
Not content with its one-goal lead, the Warriors kept pushing hard, and in the 58th minute Suriani collided with Meagan O’Neil charging to the net. Officials awarded a penalty kick that Leanne Barnard converted, and Liverpool would not get caught, though F-M did get some late chances.
Suriani finished with eight saves, twice Richey’s total, and F-M, still without a sectional title since 1996, concluded with a 10-8 record, while Liverpool advanced to meet top seed Baldwinsville in the sectional final.
