With one more opportunity to perform in front of its home fans, the Baldwinsville field hockey team provided maximum entertainment value – and also moved a step closer to back-to-back Section III Class A titles.
The no. 2 seed Bees jumped all over no. 3 seed Rome Free Academy in Monday’s sectional semifinal at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, scoring three times before the game was nine minutes old and going to to beat the Black Knights 6-1.
This puts B’ville into Sunday’s sectional final against top seed Cicero-North Syracuse, who edged Fayetteville-Manlius 1-0 in the other semifinal on Monday. That title game will start at 5 p.m. on the F-M turf.
Just nine days before their sectional meeting, B’ville had gone to RFA Stadium on Oct. 14 and put together a 7-1 victory, but that involved scoring five times in the second half to break open a close contest.
The Bees had no intention of making things that interesting again, putting on immediate pressure and scrambling the Black Knights’ defense into committing fouls that led to a pair of penalty strokes.
Emma Brushingham converted the first of these penalty strokes 2:31 into the game. Four minutes later, it was Amanda Strenk’s turn, and she put home her 30th goal of the season. Strenk, who had piled up six goals in that first game with RFA, struck again less than two minutes later, making it 3-0.
Somehow, the Black Knights kept the Bees quiet for the rest of the first half and briefly threatened to make it interesting as Nicolina Castronov scored 2:09 before intermission and another possible goal off a penalty corner was disallowed.
Sufficiently scared, B’ville started to regain control when Olivia Wachob converted 4:04 into the second half. Strenk returned to assist on Lauren Brushingham’s goal and Mackenzie Wodka converted on a breakaway with 8:35 to play.
And now the Bees get a chance for some payback. C-NS knocked off B’ville 4-1 on Oct. 3, and is hungry for its first sectional title since 2006, something the Bees are bent on preventing.
