On the same weekend that Jim Boeheim, 40 years a head coach at Syracuse University, took his team to the Final Four, another Central New York coaching legend, who started the same year that Boeheim did, embarked on another championship quest.
Indeed, Mike Messere did start his Hall of Fame tenure at West Genesee in 1976. Forty season, 800-plus victories and 15 state championships later, the school finally repaid Messere by naming its artificial turf home field in his honor, holding the formal ceremony during last August’s John Pepper Memorial Tournament.
Despite all of the accolades, Messere, and the Wildcats, still have much to work on – namely, adding to that long roll of Section III and state titles in the wake of a 2015 season that saw WG go to the state final again, only to get stopped by first-time champion Niskayuna.
Practices began March 7 with 14 seniors having graduated from last spring’s squad, plus 10 others not present because they were still with the ice hockey Wildcats on its run to the state title game in Buffalo.
A week later, hockey ended, and everyone was present, getting ready for scrimmages and, ultimately, last Saturday’s season opener, featuring another visit from Loyola Academy, a private school from Chicago.
The Wildcats beat Loyola 12-5, but it didn’t prove that easy. Inconsistency in the Wildcats’ attack allowed Loyola to hang close throughout the first half, though it was still stifled by WG’s trademark man-to-man pressure and only scored once in those first two periods.
Still, a 4-1 halftime lead was far from secure, and when Loyola made a big third-quarter push, the Wildcats had to answer back – and did, stretching out its lead to 10-5 before its defense proceeded to blank Loyola in the final period.
Kevin Sheehan, a sophomore attacker, made quite an opening impression, matching Loyola all by himself with five goals, plus an assist. Jack Howes chimed in with a three-goal hat trick, while Tyler Shoults had a goal and three assists. Ryan McDonald, Manny Castro and John Bergan had one goal apiece as Matt McDonald contributed a pair of assists.
WG would have a tough test Tuesday night at home against 2-0 Baldwinsville before going to Cicero-North Syracuse Thursday and meeting Penfield Saturday in advance of an April 12 showdown with Cazenovia at Onondaga Community College’s turf field.
