One soccer side from Fayetteville-Manlius was expected to reach the championship round of the Section III Class AA playoffs. One was not. Yet the Hornets nearly got both of those squads past their respective sectional semifinals on consecutive nights, carrying far different roles.
First, it was the F-M girls, as a no. 5 seed, trying to upend undefeated, top-seeded and state no. 7-ranked Baldwinsville last Tuesday night at Christian Brothers Academy’s Alibrandi Stadium, an opponent the Hornets had not really scared in either of its two regular-season encounters with the Bees.
Yet the game almost went to overtime, where F-M had survived before, requiring B’ville to pull off some late heroics to get out with a 1-0 victory that ended the Hornets’ dreams of a first sectional title since 1996.
What was immediately clear to B’ville was that this was not the same F-M side it had beat 4-0 on Sept. 15, but more closely resembled the side the Bees had fought past 2-0 earlier this month.
Employing the same tough defense that had worked so well against West Genesee in the Oct. 20 sectional quarterfinal in Camillus, F-M blanked B’ville in the first half, something few teams had done all season. The Hornets also limited the shots B’ville could manage, another rare feat.
As the second half wore on and the score remained 0-0, F-M partisans wondered if it could push the Bees at least into 20 minutes of overtime the way it had done against West Genesee in a match ultimately decided on penalty kicks.
Just before that could happen, though, B’ville freshman Simone Neivel broke free and, taking a pass from Addison Hornsey, slipped a shot past Sabrina Suriani with just 1:53 left in regulation. The Hornets could not answer it.
And so ended a season where F-M started 1-6 but finished at 7-9-2, with the Hornets counting on a large returning cast in 2017 since there were just six seniors on the roster.
Move to the boys side, and Fayetteville-Manlius, the top seed in the sectional Class AA tournament and no. 10 in the state rankings, is also a relatively young squad – and it managed to move within one victory of a record-setting 24th sectional title on the strength of a hat trick from one of those underclassmen.
Junior Alex Bychkov, a player not as heralded as some of his F-M teammates, made that history during last Wednesday’s sectional semifinal at Fulton against no. 5 seed Nottingham, three times finding the net and helping the Hornets tame the Bulldogs by the same 4-1 margin by which it beat CBA in the Oct. 20 quarterfinal at Swan Pond.
Though F-M had rolled past Nottingham twice in the regular season by a combined 9-0 margin in those two games, it didn’t take the assignment lightly, since the Bulldogs had just knocked off defending sectional champion Cicero-North Syracuse 1-0 in its quarterfinal game.
Just like it had done so many other times this season, F-M started fast, junior Hunter Knutsen finding the net less than two minutes into the half. But the rest of the game belonged to Bychkov, whose offensive contributions to the Hornets so far this season had proved modest.
Nottingham had settled down, and were poised to try and catch up, when Bychkov put in a goal in the 31st minute, giving the Hornets a 2-0 halftime edge. Then, when the second half started, F-M continued attacking – and Bychkov continued to flourish.
Off the quick start on a free kick, Bychkov took a pass from Joe Falcone and fit it past Bulldogs goalie Meyeno Abdi. It was Falcone’s second assist of the night, and when Nottingham closed the gap to 3-1 on Mohamed Yusuf’s goal midway through the second half, Bychkov returned to net his third goal with 12 minutes left. Aside from Falcone, Riley Burke and Seth Epling also earned assists.
Once that was done, F-M watched, perhaps with some dismay, as no. 3 seed Liverpool knocked off no. 2 seed Baldwinsville 1-0 in the other semifinal, setting up Tuesday night’s title game at B’ville’s Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium between the Hornets and Warriors.
F-M had, by far, it biggest trouble all season against a league foe when it faced Liverpool, unable to net a goal in a 0-0 late-September draw and in a 1-0 defeat at LHS Stadium a few weeks later. Now the Warriors, in the title game for the first time since 2004, are the lone obstacle left for a Hornets side after a second sectional title in three years.
