The vivid contrast in emotions was instantaneous – and difficult to forget.
Baldwinsville’s boys soccer players were on the turf, crestfallen. A few feet away, the Bees’ opponents, Fayetteville-Manlius, were running toward their fans in the stands at Jamesville-DeWitt, jubilant.
A season full of accomplishment had come down to overtime last Monday night’s Section III Class AA final, and the Bees were on the wrong end of a 2-1 defeat, denied its first title in four years by the same Hornets side it beat for that title in 2013.
From the outset in 2017, B’ville and F-M had separated themselves from the rest of the local Class AA crowd. They split two regular-season games, each side winning at home – the Hornets 2-1 at Swan Pond, the Bees 3-1 at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium.
Now they came to J-D, where the combination of wind gusts and plenty of precipitation led to a cautious start on both ends. The dynamic changed, though, when Bees starting goalie Donovan Moore exited with a leg injury in the 13th minute.
Nolan Murphy replaced Moore and was dazzling throughout the first half, making at least three superb stops on good long-range F-M shots, keeping it 0-0, where it remained deep into the second half.
With the way B’ville’s defense, led by Ben Kinslow and Frankie Levanti, was playing, it would take skill, and not luck, for F-M to get on the board, and in the 58th minute the Hornets delivered it when Cole Teelin sent a perfectly timed pass to the middle, where Noah Craig was open and flung a hard shot out of Murphy’s reach into the net.
Burned by Bees forward Brandon Mimas for two goals the last time these teams met, various F-M defenders turns shadowing Mimas and never giving him much space to burn them.
Despite this, B’ville fought back and, with 9:21 left, tied it, 1-1, when Josh Price’s low shot off the point slightly nicked an F-M player and changed direction, tucking inside the left post before Hornets goalie Chris Szidat could get it.
Throughout the rest of regulation, the Bees had good chances, but F-M turned them back, and went into OT in search of the “golden goal” that would decide matters.
Gaining possession midway through the first extra period, the Hornets, through a series of throw-ins, worked the Bees’ defense around until earning a corner kick that Hunter Knutsen sent to the middle.
What followed was a wild scene where F-M and B’ville players tried to move the ball somewhere, Murphy making at least one save. Amid that chaos, Ben Hammond got a piece of the ball and slid it past Murphy for the game-winner.
Having finished its season 15-3-1, B’ville would brace itself for seeing Mimas, Kinslow, Moore, Levanti, D.J. Taylor, Ryan Downes and Spencer Cavallaro depart, though Price, Murphy, Brennan Walsh, Michael Allen, Jason Hahn and Alex Charest come back for 2018.
