It was, without exaggeration, the most important week of the season for the Liverpool boys soccer team, with back-to-back road games against the two Class AA sides that were part of the latest state rankings.
First, the Warriors were at Swan Pond, taking on 6-1 Fayetteville-Manlius, and by all means the Hornets should have won it many different times, but didn’t do so, and Liverpool fought its way to a 0-0 draw believing it had thrown away a few great chances, too.
F-M would take the game to Liverpool throughout the first half, only to get thwarted, time and again, by terrific stops from Warriors goalie Ben Bowers, who made at least three diving saves and would finish the night with nine saves overall.
Meanwhile, Liverpool had its share of looks, too, especially at the end of each half, though Mike Baril had to leap to stop Ben Root’s shot from finding the net midway through the second half, the best of his six saves on the night.
With less than two minutes left, the Warriors put together a prolonged fast break, leaving Marquis Wright in the middle of the field. Wright took the shot and, with a hard drive, beat Baril – but hit it off the crossbar.
So it went to overtime where, again, F-M had most of the opportunities, but could not net the game winner, coming quite close with less than two minutes left in the second OT when a free kick dropped to Ryan Varley and he hit it past Bowers, but the ball glanced off the right post.
Just before this, F-M had defeated Baldwinsville 3-2 in overtime – and it was those same Bees that the Warriors would face Friday night at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, commencing the second half of league play by trying to avenge its 1-0 defeat to the Bees on Aug. 31 at LHS Stadium.
But Liverpool got nowhere close to payback, taking a 4-0 defeat as B’ville scored three times in the first half to seize quick control. Bowers had eight saves, but four different Bees players – Brandon Mimas (whose goal won the first encounter), Zach Bush, Jason Hahn and Stan Jensen – beat him for goals.
While all this was going on, Cicero-North Syracuse, the defending sectional champions, was in danger of falling too far behind in the narrative, for it had faced B’ville earlier in the week and lost, 2-0, on that same new Field Turf at Pelcher-Arcaro.
Angry at that OT loss at F-M, B’ville took it out on the Northstars, starting with Brandon Mimas connecting on a goal in the 15th minute, assisted by Zach Bush. From there, the C-NS defense did shut the door for the rest of the half, only to find itself unable to do much against the Bees’ formidable back line.
Things got worse when Stan Jensen, off another feed from Bush, converted less than five minutes into the second half. Try as it could, C-NS could not answer those goals, despite a series of chances as Bees goalie Donovan Moore made six saves.
Now C-NS had to go face Henninger on Thursday night, but remembering how it lost 2-1 to the Black Knights back on Sept. 1, the Northstars, thanks to Nolan Byrnes, managed to turn things around enough to win the rematch by that same 2-1 margin in overtime.
Byrnes had put C-NS in front 1-0 during the first half, only to see the Black Knights pull even with Tite Botame’s second-half goal. They remained that way until Byrnes, in the first OT period, flung a shot past Henninger goalie Moo Kpo Lo to end it.
C-NS would return home Tuesday to face West Genesee before going to Swan Pond Thursday, where F-M awaits, no doubt remembering the 3-2 defeat it took at Gillette Road Sept. 3 where the Northstars got the winning goal while two players down.
Liverpool, still with a record of 6-2-2 following the defeat at B’ville, would go to Nottingham on Tuesday and return to LHS Stadium Thursday night for its own encounter with Henninger.
