With some disappointment, the Fayetteville-Manlius field hockey team looked on as Baldwinsville celebrated its 2-1 victory over the Hornets in Sunday night’s Section III Class A final.
Yet F-M had every reason to feel proud about how far it traveled during Kristen Gallivan’s first season as head coach.
Just a month earlier, the notion that the Hornets would stand on its home turf on the last Sunday in October with a legitimate chance to snare a second consecutive sectional championship was an absurd one.
Maybe the Hornets had the talent and desire and ability to execute in pressure situations to reach the finals, but a 7-0 drubbing against B’ville at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium suggested that the Bees were several classes above all the other local Class A sides.
However, things turned around enough that, by Oct. 15, F-M could put together a 1-0 win over B’ville that, right at the end, denied the Bees a perfect 16-0 regular-season mark. It also moved up the Hornets to the no. 2 seed for the sectional tournament.
With only six teams in the sectional bracket, F-M had a bye straight into the sectional semifinal, though that amounted to a road trip since it was facing no. 3 seed Rome Free Academy right on the Black Knight’s home turf at RFA Stadium.
Yet it turned into a successful road trip because the Hornets, just as it did with B’ville 10 days earlier, combined an early goal with effective defense to defeat RFA 1-0.
Any pressure or rust F-M may have felt quickly went away, because a first-half scramble inside the penalty area left the ball open for Campbell Kennedy, who drilled home a shot past Black Knights goalie Maddison Cudhea.
F-M would own most of the possession, and even though it got nothing more past Cudhea (who finished with eight saves), the Hornets protected its margin through a strong defense of its own that, led by Ashley VanSlyke, Sophia Hall and Liberty Clarke, held RFA to four shots.
Hours earlier, Baldwinsville got pushed to overtime by a Liverpool side it beat twice in September, but Lauren Strenk’s goal, assisted by Emma Brushingham, allowed the Bees to escape 2-1 and set up the title game against F-M.
And this brought everyone back to the same location, and the same championship round, as 2015, when F-M, in a shoot-out, turned back B’ville for the sectional title. The 2016 version was just as close, but brought a different result and didn’t require anything beyond regulation.
Each side worked through an efficient opening sequence, but as the first half wore on, F-M started gaining more opportunities, including a series of penalty corners. But even with those open looks, B’ville goalie Abbie Timmins turned them away, earning five first-half saves.
Just when it looked like the game would stay 0-0 going into the break, B’ville put together a beautiful sequence of passes starting at midfield, which didn’t end until Amanda Strenk found Mackenzie Wodka, who slid it past Hornets goalie Catherine Barr with 51.7 seconds left in the half.
F-M didn’t get discouraged, though. Midway through the half, though, a scramble off a penalty corner resulted in Liz Truman poking the ball into the net to pull the Hornets even, 1-1.
B’ville would absorb that blow and then play its best field hockey in the minutes that followed, with long possessions the Hornets’ end. Eventually, that pressure paid off when Shylea Dukat, denied point-blank by Barr seconds earlier, pounced on a rebound and converted with 4:21 to play.
The Hornets kept on battling, getting one more penalty corner with two minutes left. However, Sophie Craig, a standout throughout the game, mishit her shot wide, and B’ville was able to run out the clock.
Having finished with a 13-4-1 record, the Hornets had made the smooth transition to Gallivan from long-time coach Cynthia Vulcano, and now focus on 2017 after seeing seven seniors depart, including Craig, Kennedy, Truman, VanSlyke, Hall, Katherine Colone and Reilly Baker.
