For the fourth consecutive weekend, the Jamesville-DeWitt girls soccer team would find itself basking in a major spotlight as it faced another high-end opponent.
The Red Rams would take on undefeated West Genesee last Saturday afternoon, but the Wildcats’ seven-game win streak and high-scoring offense had not yet faced a test as the one J-D would give them.
Sure enough, the Rams gave the Wildcats a game-long lesson in championship soccer, performing well all over the field and prevailing 4-1 to hand WG its first defeat of the fall campaign.
Accustomed to attacking at will and converting often, it had to jolt the Wildcats to fall behind early, for even with Megan Delia’s unassisted goal, J-D led, 2-1 at halftime, and would see things get worse in the latter stages.
WG goalie Liz Croft made five saves, yet J-D’s strong group of forwards still made successful finishes. Ali Durkin scored twice, while Sophia Dimkopoulos and Alex Epifani earned one goal apiece as Grace Dimkopoulos earned a pair of assists and Elena Haarer added one assist.
All of this followed a week that started for J-D with a trip to Homer and an impressive 5-0 shutout of the Trojans. Steady, relentless pressure eventually broke down the Trojans’ defenses after the Rams led, 2-0, at intermission.
Alex Catanzarite, with two goals, and Sophia Dimkopoulos, with a goal and two assists, led a well-balanced J-D offense. Durkin and Angela Bussone each scored, too, with Epifani picking up an assist. J-D took 17 shots to Homer’s three.
At Fulton two days later, the Rams hit the midway point of the regular season and, improving to 6-2, handled the Red Raiders 6-1 entirely on the basis of a first half where J-D poured in five unanswered goals.
Durkin scored twice, with Catanzarite and Epifani each notching a pair of assists to go with their goals. Dimkopoulos and Lainey Foti also found the net as the Rams maintained the shutout until Fulton’s Jordan Coulon got a second-half goal.
East Syracuse Minoa, while still waiting its chance to go after J-D, put together a monstrous first half in last Tuesday’s 7-1 win over Camden, scoring six times in the first half, led by Marissa Greiner, who finished with a three-goal hat trick, plus an assist.
Lauren Ott found the net twice, with Mallory Ott earning a goal and two assists. Franchesca Polcaro picked up ESM’s other goal as Sophia Orlando contributed an assist. The Spartans may have reached double digits were it not for Camden goalie Hannah Hughes recording 19 saves.
The Spartans hosted Cortland two nights later, and used a series of quick strikes to gain control against the Purple Tigers, eventually prevailing by a 5-2 margin to improve its record to 4-1 overall.
Less than three minutes into the game, Greiner had scored, assisted by Mallory Ott. After Cortland quickly tied it, Orlando answered to give ESM the lead back before the game was 10 minutes old.
Mallory Ott, assisted by Polcharo, made it 3-1 in the 18th minute, and three minutes later Lauren Ott fed Greiner for her second goal, so it was 4-1 barely past the midway point of the half. Things settled down from there, but the Purple Tigers never recovered as Greiner returned midway through the second half to complete a hat trick .
Back on Tuesday, two private-school rivals, Manlius-Pebble Hill and Bishop Grimes, would face each other, and after years of struggling against the Cobras, the Trojans got the best of this encounter, winning a tight 1-0 decision.
Much of the game was spent in Grimes’ end, and the Cobras’ defense resisted well, Marissa Curtis stopping 13 of the 14 shots she faced. But MPH kept on attacking and broke through when Rachel Comfort put in what proved to be the game’s lone goal.
From there, the Trojans moved on to a big test on Thursday against undefeated Bishop Ludden, a team that beat Grimes the week before. MPH led early, but could not hold on to that margin, ultimately taking a 2-1 overtime defeat to the Gaelic Knights.
Lisa Morocco’s goal, assisted by Lizzie Marfici, gave the Trojans a 1-0 edge that lingered until the second half, when Ludden’s Emma Driscoll tied it. Then Driscoll returned in the OT period to record the game-winner, negating the nine saves that MPH goalie Sarah Smith put up as Gaelic Knights counterpart Kara Beamish had seven saves.
Grimes also played on Thursday and also lost in overtime, though it was a 3-1 defeat to Onondaga in this instance.
Mackenzie Gilbert’s first-half goal was matched, and after neither team could break the 1-1 tie in the second half, OCS took it by getting a goal in each of the two OT periods, even though Curtis made 10 saves as Becky Mack, Julia Magalhaes and Robbie Wucher scored for the Tigers and Jessika Southard stopped seven of the eight Grimes shots she faced.
The Cobras’ skid finally ended Friday in a tough 1-0 win over Cato-Meridian, where Julia Gnade’s first-half goal held up the rest of the way, despite the Blue Devils getting most of the scoring opportunities. Greiner stopped all nine shots she faced.
