Rarely has the Baldwinsville boys soccer team seen its season get to the second weekend of November, when state championships are on the line.
Yet never before has a Bees team proved as stingy as the one that it will send to Middletown High School this weekend in the wake of earning the Class AA regional championship.
Playing close to home at Liverpool High School Stadium on Saturday afternoon, B’ville met the Section II champions from Albany’s Christian Brothers Academy branch and, again, cranked up the defense, which proved necessary in a 1-0 victory.
Getting a regional game on a familiar turf helped, even if B’ville’s lone defeat of the season took place here in mid-September, when it lost to Liverpool by that same 1-0 margin.
Conditions were conducive to a low-scoring contest, too, with both teams dealing with gusty winds, though the precipitation from earlier in the day had mostly gone away by the time the game began.
Albany CBA was in the regional round for the first time, yet in the game’s early stages kept things quiet and waited for a chance to challenge the formidable B’ville defense.
By the time that happened, though, the Bees were in front. Again, Josh Price was at the forefront, the senior forward drawing the attention of the Brothers’ defenders on a run to the net in the 17th minute and then passing it to Tyler Johnson, who slipped in the goal.
For the rest of the afternoon, B’ville could not add to that one-goal margin, meaning that, for more than an hour of game time, the Bees’ defense was on the spot in a way not seen in 17 previous shutouts this fall.
They were up to that challenge, though.
Jared Kantak, Teklu Habtesion, Alex Charest, Jack Branigan and other back-line players clinically broke up most of Albany CBA’s attacks and limited them to five direct shots, all of which Nate Hanna would grab.
And now the Bees are on its way to the state final four, needing two more victories to secure the program’s first-ever state title.
In next Saturday’s semifinal at 4 p.m. at Middletown, B’ville takes on Section IX champion Monroe-Woodbury. The winner advances to next Sunday’s 1 p.m. title game.
