A season ago, when the Christian Brothers Academy girls lacrosse team stormed to the state Class A championship, it did so not having to climb past West Genesee in the post-season because of the Wildcats’ defeat to Cicero-North Syracuse in the Section III Class A semifinals.
But these two powerhouses would not avoid each other in 2017, meeting last Saturday at Alibrandi Stadium, and despite leading most of the way, the Brothers could not make the plays it needed down the stretch and suffered a 6-5 defeat to the Wildcats.
The roots of this game dated back to 2016, when these two powerful sides didn’t meet in the regular season and were denied a sectional title-game showdown when WG lost to Cicero-North Syracuse in the sectional semifinals.
Now, as they finally got together, the Wildcats arrived in its best form of the season, having avenged a mid-April defeat to Fayetteville-Manlius with a 9-4 victory on Tuesday night.
It was against the Hornets that Mackenzie Meager, a sophomore midfielder, took over full-time duties in the draw circle. She excelled in that role, turning around a problem area for WG, and she would do the same against CBA, constantly winning extra possessions for her side.
Despite this, the only Wildcats goal in the first half came from Cecilia Procopio 55 seconds into the game. For the next 24-plus minutes, constant turnovers plagued WG as it did not convert on two different player-advantage situations and gave the deep, potent Brothers lineup all kinds of chances to take control.
And CBA did lead, 3-1, at halftime, thanks to goals by Jillian Henson, Tessa Queri and Olivia Penoyer, but the Wildcats’ defense forced the Brothers to take longer possessions and took away its transition game, too.
WG goalie Claudia Mocciaro, in goal, was stellar, too, as her series of saves late in the first half kept things close. Energized by her work, WG started to take advantage of Meager’s draws early in the second half as Matisyn Schaut, Eliza MacCaull and Adrianna Nojaim hit on consecutive goals, putting the Wildcats up 4-3.
CBA used a time-out, regrouped and regained the lead on Olivia Penoyer’s back-to-back goals. Yet WG would allow nothing more and, down the stretch, took charge with its own patient attack.
To that point, WG’s leading offensive threat, Mackenzie Baker, had served as a distributor, earning three assists. But that changed as she fired home the tying goal with 8:48 left and, a minute later, converted again.
Meager won yet another draw, and WG tried to hold the ball, only to turn it over. CBA unleashed its fast break and, with 3:20 left, Grace Hulslander fired – and Mocciaro made yet another point-blank stop, her 11th save of the game. WG got the ball back and was able to run out the remaining clock.
Prior to that, CBA had an abbreviated schedule during the week, since severe weather postponed last Monday’s home game against Cortland. But the Brothers did play at Mexico on a soggy Thursday afternoon and blanked the Tigers 23-0.
Steadily, CBA built a 17-0 halftime lead and saw the trio of Penoyer, Queri and Meredith Strott each score four times, with Queri adding three assists, Penoyer two assists and Strott one assist.
Henson scored three times as Hulslander picked up two goals and three assists. Erika Mayette also found the net twice as Rachel Ziemba got a goal and three assists. Claire Jeschke, Anna Ziemba and Avery Penoyer scored, too, with Gia Anthony and Tate Kohlbrenner picking up assists.
It would not get much easier for CBA after the loss to West Genesee, since neighbor Jamesville-DeWitt would show up on Tuesday and then, on Thursday night, long-time rival Skaneateles will come to Alibrandi Stadium.
