For all the things the Baldwinsville boys lacrosse team did well in 2016, the most important item – claiming its first Section III championship in more than two decades – remained elusive.
The Bees’ narrow defeat to Fayetteville-Manlius in last spring’s sectional Class A final hurt, but also has served as a motivating force in the weeks and months that followed. For everyone in the B’ville program, from head coach Matt Wilcox to the players to the fans, nothing less than winning it all in 2017 will suffice.
B’ville’s schedule favors another title run, with 10 of the first 13 games at home and just one road trip (to Webster Thomas on April 22) outside of Onondaga County.
The first of those home games fell on Tuesday night, when Marcellus arrived at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium and threatened to make things interesting for a while, but two quick outbursts put the Bess in control as it went on to beat the Mustangs 11-5.
Less than a minute into the game, Sam Rice scored to put Marcellus in front, yet it could not follow up that tally, shut out for more than 18 minutes as B’ville, who only had one scrimmage this month (against Jamesville-DeWitt), took a while to get its attack going.
Late in the first quarter, though, the Bees went in front with goals by Cole Peters and Ryan Gebhardt, foreshadowing the decisive moves it would make in the second period.
With the score 3-2, Peters struck for his second goal with 4:42 left in the half. Nine seconds later, sophomore Mike Tangredi won the face-off, charged up the middle of the field and scored to make it 5-2.
Nearly the same thing happened in the last 90 seconds of the half. Pete Fiorini’s goal was followed, within 12 seconds, by a won face-off and Gebhardt’s quick pass to another sophomore, Austin Bolton, who converted.
Any hope for Marcellus to erase its 7-2 halftime deficit got dashed in a third quarter where Ben Dwyer, Kyle Pelcher, David Steria and the rest of B’ville’s defense blanked the Mustangs and goalie Franky Delia kept making key stops.
Meanwhile, on the other end Tangredi scored again and fellow sophomore Spencer Wirtheim got his first varsity goal. Tangredi added a third goal in the fourth quarter, with Fiorini also finding the net.
B’ville would now get nine days to work on the various mistakes it made in the opener, from poor passes to penalties, before it returns next Thursday to host Rochester Aquinas, a prelude to an April 8 showdown with Cazenovia.
