Survivors of a memorable evening of semifinal contests would make their way to SUNY-Cortland Tuesday night to settle the four Section III girls lacrosse championships.
Fayetteville-Manlius knew it would be there, returning from a two-week rest to face Auburn in the Class B final even as coaches Kelly Tormey and Kristen Beilein celebrated their mother Kathy Taylor’s coaching achievement as Le Moyne College’s women’s lacrosse team won the NCAA Division II championship on May 20.
To join them, Christian Brothers Academy would have to beat Baldwinsville in the sectional Class A semifinal on the F-M turf, a rematch of the 2017 title game won by the Brothers.
And it would have the same result here, though not without plenty of difficulty as the Brothers were behind the entire first half, only to rise up in the middle stages and ultimately beat the Bees 8-6.
Following an early scoring exchange, B’ville’s defense settled in and held the Brothers off the board for a large majority of the first half. This gave the attack some time to get settled and, when it did, Hannah Johnson struck twice and Katie Pascale added a goal.
Had the Bees held that 5-2 lead until halftime, things may have turned out different – but Grace Hulslander, with back-to-back goals in the waning moments of the half, whittled B’ville’s lead to one, and Gracie Britton converted 19 seconds after intermission to tie it, 5-5.
Britton returned four minutes later, her goal giving CBA the lead, and now it was the Brothers’ turn to clamp down, its defense shutting out B’ville until the final minute.
Amanda Winn and Claire Jeschke added late goals, joining Anna Ziemba in the scoring column as Hulslander finished with three goals and one assist.
The sectional final will pit CBA against top seed West Genesee, who survived getting shut out in the second half to edge Cicero-North Syracuse 6-5 in the other semifinal. The Brothers lost to the Wildcats 9-5 back in April in Camillus.
Meanwhile, in Class C, top seed and defending champion Jamesville-DeWitt had a bye into the semifinals Thursday at Holland Stadium in Auburn, where it would face no. 4 seed Carthage, who got there by knocking out East Syracuse Minoa 17-13.
It didn’t prove too stressful for the Red Rams, who defeated the Comets 21-8, steadily attacking against a porous Carthage defense and gaining a 13-5 advantage by halftime.
And the lead kept growing as Ana Dieroff and Riley Burns spearheaded J-D’s efforts, Dieroff scoring seven goals and adding an assist as Burns scored five times and got three assists.
Katie Lutz helped out with three goals and one assist. Lindsay MacLachlan had a goal and two assists, with goals also going to Ali Durkin, Jordan Archer, Chloe Loewenguth, Kailey McKenna and Gabby Modesti.
Fulton handled Whitesboro 21-11 in the other semifinal at Auburn, meaning that the Red Raiders and Red Rams would meet in the finals, J-D having won both of their regular-season meetings by a single goal, 11-10 on April 12 and 16-15 in overtime three weeks later.
When Carthage faced ESM, the Spartans got the jump as Taylor Filmer, Julianna Barton and Rileigh White put in goals for a quick 3-0 lead, and Filmer converted again after the Comets scored twice.
But then Carthage went in front for good with seven unanswered goals, a run only broken up when White and Kelly Thomas scored to make it 9-5, and they traded goals until it was 11-7 at halftime.
Try as it could, the Spartans could not get closer than three goals (13-10) the rest of the way, this despite White’s career-best six assists as barton scored thre times, with White, Thomas and Sophia Orlando getting two goals apiece. Julia Caruana had one goal and one assist.
Carthage was carried, for the most part, by the duo of Claire Odett and Braelie Kempney as Odett had seven goals and three assists, with Kempney getting six goals and five assists. ESM finished its season with an 8-9 record.
