MIDDLETOWN – With three defeats and three draws in its first nine matches, the Cicero-North Syracuse boys soccer team seemed far removed from even thinking about a state Class AA championship.
Yet here were the Northstars, part of championship weekend in Middletown in the Hudson Valley region, trying to seek a pinnacle never attained in the program’s history – or by any other Section III school in the largest of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association’s divisions.
C-NS met Section I’s Scarsdale in the state semifinal Saturday afternoon at Middletown’s Faller Field, where a long shutout streak finally ended – and so did the Northstars’ season in a 2-0 defeat.
The game was barely a minute old when Scarsdale, the state’s top-ranked AA team, earned a throw-in near the C-NS net. When the ball flew to the middle, the Raiders’ Lev Stahl was able to crash the net and put it past Wyatt Dupell.
This in itself was a big deal. Not since an Oct. 11 win over Nottingham had C-NS allowed a goal to anyone, a shutout streak that covered eight-plus games and nearly 700 minutes, including the Northstars’ entire post-season run.
To its credit, C-NS settled down enough to withstand all of Scarsdale’s charges the rest of the first half and keep the game 1-0 going to the break.
Dupell, who finished with 11 saves, and his back-line mates did all they could, waiting and hoping that the Northstars’ attack would make its own breakthrough and even the match.
Instead, the Raiders were patient and sealed the game late when Leo Khang got behind the defense, broke in and beat Dupell for the clinching goal.
Scarsdale advanced to face Rochester McQuaid in the championship game, while C-NS finished a 13-5-3 campaign that included 10 wins in 11 games following that 3-3-3 start.
Dupell leads a strong departing senior class that includes Zach Scott, Jacob Dietter, Jake Trubia, Aaron Huksic and Sean Graves, though plenty of good players, including Gagan Adhikari, Adam Bonnier, Dante Melfi and Hunter Lawless, return in 2023.
