CENTRAL NEW YORK – This was the week the Skaneateles boys soccer team looked forward to the most in the regular season, its chance to get even with Marcellus for the Mustangs ending the Lakers’ championship run a season ago.
Except that even if it did, the Lakers would not be the first OHSL Liberty division side with this in mind.
Westhill did so last Monday night, working through 80 tense minutes of regulation before getting the goal it needed in overtime to pull out a 1-0 victory and move its overall record to 5-1.
Situated at no. 9 in the first state Class B rankings of the fall, the Warriors would control most of the game’s flow of play, taking 12 shots on net to the Mustangs’ three.
Ryan Stephens was terrific for Marcellus, making 11 saves. Only in OT did he get beat, the game-winner coming for Westhill when Eric Holstein scored off a feed from Cal Petrone.
A follow-up for Westhill was handling Solvay 6-0 on Thursday night, the issue decided early as the Warriors bolted out to a 5-0 halftime advantage and tacked on a single second-half goal.
Skaneateles, meanwhile, claimed the no. 17 spot in the state Class B rankings and, venturing to Alibrandi Stadium last Tuesday, proved quite impressive blanking Christian Brothers Academy 4-0.
Helped by Rocco Grotto’s eight saves, CBA kept it close for a while, but a 1-0 halftime lead grew as Skaneateles again leaned on Ian Thompson who added two goals as Cody Crane and Heschel Eidel also converted. Sam Ryan got two assists, single assists going to Crane and Andrew Petercsak.
Another strong win followed on Thursday night, the Lakers blanking Cortland 5-0 to improve its overall record to 5-0-1.
No matter what the Purple Tigers tried, it could not contain Thompson, who notched his 12th, 13th and 14th goals to earn his third hat trick of the season. Petercsak and Edras Perez had the other goals as Ryan got two assists and single assists went to Caleb Langford, Max Cerimeli and Lucas Cerimeli.
Only on Saturday did Skaneateles take its first blemish of the season, a 1-0 loss to West Genesee where it had three times as many shots as the Wildcats but could not answer Jeff Mercer’s first-half goal.
Before this, Solvay lost, 6-1, to Cazenovia last Tuesday night, the Bearcats only traling 2-0 at halftime before those other Lakers pulled away. Vadym Vitrovyi had Solvay’s only goal in the late stages, assisted by Justin Zimmerman. Alex Grant had 11 saves.
