Both fueled and scarred by memories of what happened one year ago, the Baldwinsville girls soccer team can find full atonement if it can top Liverpool with the Section III Class AA championship on the line.
That it comes down to the top-seeded Bees and no. 2 seed Warriors is only fitting. It’s a rematch of the 2016 final where B’ville had a possible winning goal disallowed on a controversial call and then went on to see Liverpool survive penalty kicks to advance to the state tournament.
In order to have this showdown Saturday at SUNY-Cortland, the two rivals had to first work through Wednesday night’s semifinal games at Christian Brothers Academy’s Alibrandi Stadium, and neither of them was stress-free.
Liverpool blew an early 2-0 lead against Rome Free Academy before recovering to prevail 4-2 over the Black Knights. Then B’ville trailed no. 4 seed Fayetteville-Manlius for much of the first half, yet fought back to eliminate the Hornets 2-1.
In two September meetings, the Bees beat F-M by 3-1 and 2-0 margins, but the Hornets didn’t let either game get out of hand. Now F-M was more confident in its own abilities, and the Bees had not played in 11 days.
Combine these factors, and the Hornets attacked hard from the opening whistle. It paid off when, less than 90 seconds into the game, Alex Vinci pounced on a rebound and hit a shot off Meaghan Wilson’s hands into the top part of the net.
For much of the rest of the first half, F-M ably protected that 1-0 lead with a defense that did not give the Bees’ quick group of attackers much space, and goalie Sabrina Suriani always put herself in the right position to make stops.
Had the Hornets kept the lead going into halftime, the pressure on B’ville might have proved severe. But just 18.1 seconds before intermission, Kelsey Delola curved a 30-yard shot from the right side out of Suriani’s reach into the top left corner of the net.
Thus, it was 1-1 going to the second half, and that single goal allowed the Bees to patiently probe F-M’s resistance while also playing its own sound defense against a Hornets group whose energy level never wavered.
With 17:10 to play, B’ville’s Hannah Mimas, handling the ball at an angle far right of the net, sent a shot toward Siriani, The velocity of the shot caused the ball to spin out of Suriani’s hands and tumble past the goal line.
Despite some late scares, the Bees held on, and now it’s the long-awaited final with Liverpool, who beat B’ville 2-1 in late September, only to get routed by them 5-0 on Oct. 14, two weeks before the third and most important encounter of the season.
