As they prepared for their respective 2018 seasons, boys soccer teams at Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse carried more urgency than normal.
The regular-season schedule is crowded enough, with 16 matches squeezed into seven weeks. But the parameters of the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division meant that league games would take place quite early.
So it was that, last Wednesday morning, Liverpool hosted West Genesee while, that night at Swan Pond, C-NS would challenge defending Section III Class AA champion Fayetteville-Manlius.
It was hot enough, even in the morning, that Liverpool moved its game with West Genesee from the Field Turf at LHS Stadium to the grass field across the high school campus, but that didn’t keep the Warriors from an impressive 3-0 victory over the Wildcats.
Liverpool led 2-0 by halftime, and tacked on another in the late stages as goals went to Justin Lombard, Enrique Valencia and Ian Zingaro, with Jake Zona adding an assist. Goalie Ben White stopped all seven of WG’s shots for the shutout.
That night, C-NS took its turn and did quite well against F-M, keeping the Northstars off the board. What’s more, its defense limited the Hornets to just two shots.
Yet the game remained 0-0 until an impending rainstorm, along with lightning, forced the teams off the field, not to return. They’ll meet again Sept. 24 at the Gillette Road complex.
Meanwhile, in girls soccer there was Liverpool moving on from last year’s run to the sectional Class AA final, where it fell to eventual state champion Baldwinsville, with a lot of roster turnover.
As it replaced eight starters from 2017 (including the sister trio of Carli, Bri and Abby Kovarik), the Warriors faced New Hartford in last Tuesday’s opener and edged the Spartans 1-0.
They were scoreless until the second half, when senior Megan Merola, off a feed from Ciara Conklin, put it past Spartans goalie Abby Bucholz, Liverpool’s defense limited New Hartford to five shots, all stopped by Megan Merrifield.
A much tougher foe arrived on Thursday as Section II power Bethlehem powered past the Warriors 6-0. The Eagles scored three times in each half, overcoming Merrifield’s 15 saves.
