A mark of greatness for the Baldwinsville field hockey team of 2016 would involve landing at least a Section III Class A championship, and perhaps going on a state title.
Yet another unofficial, yet special, prize slipped out of the Bees’ grasp last Saturday – that of going 16-0, an unblemished regular-season mark that even the best field hockey sides rarely pull off, denied by Fayetteville-Manlius in a 1-0 decision.
It was only fitting that F-M played the role of perfect season spoiler, and that it happened on the same turf where, nearly 12 months earlier, B’ville lost the sectional final in penalty strokes to those very same Hornets.
While the Bees carried the older memory of that 2015 sectional final, F-M’s pain was fresher – namely, a 7-0 defeat at B’ville on Sept. 26. Less than three weeks later, it would require quite a turnaround for the Hornets to catch up, but somehow it happened.
Largely it happened due to a sensational F-M defense, who never let attackers like Shylea Dukat, Amanda Strenk and Chloe Lynch get too many free looks. In fact, Hornets goalie Catherine Barr, so riddled in the first meeting, only had to make six saves in the rematch.
On its side, B’ville’s defense did well, too, anchored by Abbey Timmins’ seven-save effort. Yet the first-half goal she allowed to Sophie Craig, unassisted, stood up the rest of the afternoon, and the Bees’ 15-game win streak was over.
Before all this, B’ville got one more chance to entertain the home crowd, which it did last Wednesday night at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium with yet another scoring blitz that resulted in an 8-0 shutout over East Syracuse Minoa.
These same teams had met exactly one week earlier at ESM Stadium, and B’ville had prevailed 5-3. The difference in the second encounter was that B’ville was back at home and would not let the Spartans get many opportunities to attack.
In all, the Bees took 36 shots, and while ESM goalie Cory Palmer did make 28 saves, both Strenk and Dukat earned three-goal hat tricks, Strenk adding two assists as Mackenzie Wodka and McKenzie Carroll added single goals.
One thing that could get salvaged from the loss at F-M was that B’ville had long clinched the sectional Class A playoff top seed. That meant 10 days of rest before next Tuesday’s semifinal at Rome Free Academy Stadium against no. 4 seed Cicero-North Syracuse or no. 5 seed Liverpool. F-M is the no. 2 seed and will meet RFA or Auburn in the other semifinal.
