All will not feel complete for the Baldwinsville field hockey team unless it beats the exact same opponent in the exact same round as it could not do a season ago with the Section III Class A championship at stake.
But it nearly didn’t get to that point.
Following a 10-day respite, the Bees returned to action in Tuesday’s sectional Class A semifinal against no. 5 seed Liverpool at Rome Free Academy Stadium and got pushed into overtime before the combination of Amanda Strenk and Emma Brushingham salvaged matters and helped B’ville subdue the Warriors 3-2.
All indications pointed toward a less stressful contest for the Bees, not because it had beat Liverpool 5-3 and 4-1 in their two September meetings, but because of the fury and focus it would show in the wake of Fayetteville-Manlius denying them an undefeated regular season back on Oct. 15.
Of course, the Warriors had improved plenty since those early-season defeats to B’ville, as it showed by winning at Cicero-North Syracuse 1-0 in OT in the opening round of the sectional tournament – and would display here, too, by playing B’ville, still a bit rusty from its layoff, to a 0-0 first-half deadlock.
The Bees finally broke through against Liverpool’s stingy defense with a second-half goal by Strenk, assisted by Brushingham, before the Warriors countered by having Brianna Socker fire a shot past Abigail Timmins.
Other than that, Timmins stopped everything she faced, earning seven saves, one more than Liverpool goalie Brittany Cussen, so the game remained 1-1 going into the first seven-on-seven OT period B’ville had faced all season.
Showing championship poise, the Bees set up another opportunity in the first extra period and, just like in regulation, struck with the combination of Brushingham passing it to Strenk, who beat Cussen for the game-winner.
Hours later, Fayetteville-Manlius beat Rome Free Academy 1-0 in the other semifinal, meaning that on Sunday, B’ville would have to beat the Hornets on F-M’s home turf, a quest it could not quite pull off in 2015.
