A rare and remarkable feat was pulled off by the Westhill boys and girls soccer teams when they each booked tickets to their respective state championship weekends on Saturday afternoon.
For the boys Warriors, that meant ending the 57-match win streak of Section IV champion Elmira Notre Dame in a 1-0 battle at the Wright National Soccer Complex in Oneonta, just as the girls Warriors were pulling away from Section X champion Beekmantown 3-0 in its regional final at Plattsburgh High School.
At Oneonta, the task for Westhill’s boys, who had blanked Cazenovia 3-0 to win the Section III title earlier in the week, was to contain an Elmira Notre Dame side who had not lost a game since 2013, picking up the 2015 state Class C championship along the way before a promotion to Class B this fall.
Notre Dame had just three seniors on the roster. Still, the more experienced Westhill side could not break through during a 0-0 first half, and as the early part of the second half wore on, Warriors partisans had to wonder if the Crusaders could maintain this tough resistance.
Then, in the 54th minute, Bernat Carbonell, the team’s leading scorer whose goal and two assists had put away Cazenovia, struck with speed and aggression.
Carbonell took the ball and tore right past two Notre Dame defenders, eventually slipping a shot past Crusaders goalie Declan Sharma. It was one of just two shots Westhill managed all day, but it made the difference as the Warriors’ back line did a superb job protecting the slim lead.
Celebrations were in order at Plattsburgh, too, though Westhill had cleared its big regional hurdle on Tuesday at Fulton when it rallied from a 2-1 deficit to upend state no. 1-ranked Schalmont by a 3-2 score.
Against Beekmantown, the Warriors never fell behind, but was quiet through most of the first half, keeping the Eagle in it. Then the stars took over as, just three minutes before halftime, Erin McMullen’s shot was deflected into the net by Jayanna Monds.
Remaining generous, McMullen fed Megan O’Reilly for another goal early in the second half, and then put one in her self off a corner kick at the midway point of the half, all of it enough to secure the regional championship.
Now it’s back to the state final four, where Westhill won it all in 1995 (in Class C) and 1996 (in Class B), but hasn’t matched those efforts since, getting close in 2014 before dropping the state final to Bronxville.
The semifinal takes place Saturday at 12:30 at Cortland High School, with the Warriors going up against Long Island champion Wheatley. The winner gets to SUNY-Cortland Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. to play for the state title against Newfane (Section VI) or Chenango Forks (Section IV).
As for the Westhill boys, it goes to Middletown, where the Warriors last got this far in 2013, reaching the state finals before falling to Long Island power Carle Place.
In Saturday’s state semifinal, Westhill faces Section V champion Livonia, who needed penalty kicks to topple state no. 1-ranked Buffalo I-Prep in its regional final. That game starts at 4 p.m. The winner advances to Sunday’s final at 3:15 against Hastings (Section I) or Ichabod Crane (Section II).
Westhill’s neighbors from Bishop Ludden, who won the Section III Class C title, could not make it out of its regional final at Oneonta, falling 1-0 to Section IV champion Lansing.
This game was 0-0 at halftime, giving the Gaelic Knights yet another opportunity to produce some kind of late drama.
Under constant pressure from Lansing’s attack, Peter Lockwood was brilliant in the net, recording 11 saves, but the Bobcats got to him two minutes into the second half when sophomore Langston Hopkins followed up his own rebound amid a crowd in front of Ludden’s net and slipped it past Lockwood inside the left post.
Now needing a goal, the Gaelic Knights picked up pressure and earned a pair of corner kicks, but never got many direct shots against a superb Bobcats defense.
This story also had an emotional backdrop, since Lansing head coach Adam Heck passed away just before the start of the season at age 42. Benji Parkes, a young coach fresh out of college who played for Lansing’s state semifinal soccer team in 2011 and its state championship baseball side the following spring, took over and has guided the Bearcats back to the state final four.
As for Ludden’s long-time head coach, Oscar Vergara, he received a high honor when he was named the state Coach of the Year for private and parochial schools by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, an honor he also won in 1996 and 2009.
It was a fitting cap to a 16-3-4 season that ended a championship drought for the Gaelic Knights. Vergara will get his NSCAA honor this weekend at Middletown, wishing that he could bring the entire team along for one or two more games.
