Perhaps as a penance for all the cold weather and snow endured in April, summer broke out on the first day of May as the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool girls lacrosse teams gathered again.
This meeting at LHS Stadium would turn out nearly identical to the way the first meeting did on April 12 at Bragman Stadium, with the state Class A no. 25-ranked Northstars doing enough to get past the Warriors 13-10.
More goals were featured this time around than in that 9-7 C-NS win less than three weeks earlier. Also, the game was in doubt most of the way, Liverpool pushing hard to play the Northstars to a 6-6 halftime tie in the rematch.
Jessica Meneilly made sure C-NS went in front to stay, though, pouring in six goals overall and leading a second-half surge as passes came from Fran Tortora, who had four assists, and Brenna Duffy, who got three assists.
Megan Tryniski scored three times and Makena Scarlta found the net twice, with Duffy and Tortora getting single goals and Olivia Massena adding an assist.
No one on Liverpool got close to Meneilly’s production. Brittany Halpin did lead with three goals and one assist, while Kate Salanger and Colleen Tifft had two goals apiece. Bella Brancato, Maia Henry and Jenna Irwin each had a goal and Emily Salanger added an assist.
Despite this result, it had no lingering effects for either side. In fact, Liverpool turned around on Thursday and recorded, by far, its biggest win of the season, going to Fayetteville-Manlius and stunning the Hornets 8-7.
This was the same F-M side that punished Liverpool 19-10 two weeks earlier. With the Warriors still rankled that the Hornets kept scoring on them long after that game was out of reach, the payback was particularly sweet.
Liverpool kept the tempo modest, played F-M to a 5-5 halftime tie and then edged out in front late, doing an effective job of possessing the ball and protecting that slim advantage.
Brancato got three goals for the Warriors as Halpin and Irwin had two goals apiece. Henry added one goal and one assist, with Abby Hope also getting an assist and Maggie Bradley making eight saves, all of them important. Only Amanda Cramer and Gemma Addonizio scored twice for the Hornets.
As that went on, C-NS tried to sweep a state no. 12-ranked West Genesee side it beat in early April at home. This game was in Camillus, though, and the revenge-minded Wildcats took over in the second half to prevail 10-5.
Trailing 3-1 at one point in the first half, the Northstars rallied to tie it, 4-4, at the break. But WG put together five unanswered goals in the second half and blanked C-NS for more than 22 minutes.
Meneilly had three of the Northstars’ goals, with the other two going to Tryniski. Duffy, Tortora and Scarlata had one assist apiece. Phoebe Nelson paced the Wildcats with three goals and two assists.
During the week of the school break, C-NS had traveled to Maryland, where on April 27 it dropped a 15-14 overtime battle to Maryvale Prep.
Meneilly had five goals as Duffy got six assists, with Massena getting three goals and Tortora two goals Scarlata, Tryniski and Molly Molchanoff joined Duffy in getting single goals.
A week later, a shorter road trip also led to defeat for the Northstars, only here it was defending Section III Class A champion Christian Brothers Academy humbling C-NS on Saturday in a 16-6 defeat.
The Northstars never got on track until the second half, by which point it trailed 12-3, having seen CBA’s trio of Olivia Penoyer (six goals, one assist), Claire Jeschke (three goals, five assists) and Grace Hulslander (two goals, three assists) take over early.
Ultimately, Meneilly did get a three-goal outing of her own, with Duffy adding three assists. Massena had one goal and one assist as Tryniski and Grace Thompson got the other goals.
