Many of the area’s high school girls and boys soccer teams found themselves playing their opening games of the season in the last days of August, long before summer heat transforms into autumn chill.
In the case of Jamesville-DeWitt and East Syracuse Minoa, there were games between the two neighbors early Tuesday morning, moved from midday to combat a heat index that pushed triple digits.
For J-D’s girls, winners of nine consecutive Section III Class A titles and a visitor to the state final four last November, it took just 15 minutes to produce all that was needed to prevail 3-0 over ESM at Spartan Stadium.
Gradually throughout the first half, the Red Rams picked up its pressure. Then, in the 26th minute, Tonia Kousmanidis passed to the middle, where Grace Dimkopoulos fired it into the top left corner of the net.
Five minutes later, Hayley Quackenbush fired a direct corner kick that rode the breeze and fit inside the top right corner. Just before halftime, the margin grew to three as ninth-grader Sydney Balotin scored and eighth-grader Megan Baker assisted, the first varsity point for both of them.
Yet when these same two schools met in boys soccer across town at J-D, the result was the exact opposite as ESM was the side that triumphed by a 3-0 margin. What was more, each of the Spartans’ goals came in the second half as it wore the Rams’ defense down.
Senior Kyle Scalzo led the way for the Spartans, twice finding the net as ninth-grader Todd Durantini struck for his first varsity goal in support. Ty Mulcahy assisted twice, with another assist going to Spencer Caramanna.
Moving to Wednesday’s action, weather affected things here, too, most notably in the evening as defending sectional Class A champion Fayetteville-Manlius tried to open against Cicero-North Syracuse at Swan Pond.
Temperatures had chilled by that point, but with the score 0-0 in the second half, a thunderstorm, and nearby lightning, forced the game to be abandoned. The Hornets and Northstars will meet again Sept. 24 at the Gillette Road complex.
Earlier that day, Manlius-Pebble Hill began its season by facing Faith Heritage, the two great private-school rivals playing to a 3-3 draw at the Jones Road facility.
At halftime, the Trojans trailed the Saints 1-0, but it got active after intermission. Naldo Chen scored twice for MPH, with Ahk El-Hindi getting two assists as Jack Hogan earned the other goal.
To keep up, Faith Heritage needed two goals from Fred Jackson and another from Noah Singh, who assisted on one of Jackson’s tallies. Between them, MPH goalies Frank Fung and Ezra Hanlin made seven saves.
MPH’s girls team lost, 8-1, to South Jefferson, with only Maddie Mafrici’s goal preventing the Trojans from getting shut out. Hannah Warren had nine saves as Macy Schulz paced the visitors with two goals and two assists.
But then the Trojans beat Pulaski 5-0 a day later, led by Mafrici’s three assists as she joined Natalie Storie and Katherine Mezzalingua in the scoring column. Peri Cannavo finished with two assists as Ana Videto and Audrey McLain also got assists.
J-D and ESM both played Thursday and each earned a shutout. J-D claimed a tough 1-0 decision at Cortland when Dimkopoulos, off a feed from Grace Thomas, notched the game’s only goal midway through the second half, just as she had done in a similar game against the Purple Tigers the year before.
That same day, ESM beat Central Square 3-0 and Bishop Grimes, making its 2018 season debut, beat Onondaga 1-0, the Tigers now coached by Lisa Eipp, who in 2017 guided the Warriors to a share of the state Class B title.
Katherine Murphy’s first-half goal, assisted by Rhonee Shea Pal, held up despite a constant OCS attack that produced 10 shots, all of them stopped by Cobras goalie Caroline Wilkinson.
In boys soccer on Thursday, ESM, led by Scalzo, got its own 3-0 win over Central Square as Scalzo scored twice and assisted on Jacob Longo’s tally. Sean Belcher and Lance Madonna also earned assists as J-D, against Cortland, played to a 0-0 draw.
