Each of the area’s high school boys soccer teams dealt with their fair share of excitement and wildly varying degrees of success during last week’s action.
Jamesville-DeWitt was 1-2 before it gained some key momentum from a tough 1-0 victory over East Syracuse Minoa on Sept. 12, and it didn’t have a letdown at Oswego last Tuesday night, shutting out the Buccaneers 3-0.
Oswego hung close for a while, but a pair of second-half goals allowed the Red Rams to get clear as senior midfielder Jackson Carmen led the way with one goal and one assist. Connor Ball also scored, with Zach McBennett adding an assist.
Hosting Auburn on Thursday afternoon, J-D went for three wins in a row and attained it, topping the Maroons in another 3-0 decision.
McBennett this time reached the goal-scoring column, helping the Rams pull away after leading Auburn 1-0 at halftime. Ben Collins and Patrick David earned the other goals, with Logan Roadarmel and Matt Gera stopping all six of the Maroons’ shots.
ESM, meanwhile, went through a tense battle with visiting Central Square last Tuesday night, needing to rally in the second half and ultimately go to overtime to get a 2-1 win over the Redhawks.
Bryce Koagel’s goal had Central Square in front early, but the Spartans erased that 1-0 deficit in the 55th minute when Matt Kenney, off a feed from James Ferris, converted.
They stayed 1-1 into OT, where a series of fine passes, the last of them by Casey McGlynn and Christian Moon, set up Sean Belcher, who put the game-winner past Kody Haywood. Prior to that Haywood had 14 saves as ESM goalie Almedin Smajic had nine saves.
Christian Moon and James Ferris each got assists as A Smajic had nine saves, with Redhawks counterpart KodyHaywood earning 14 saves to keep his team in the game until beyond regulation.
It was just as stressful in Thursday night’s game at Cortland, where ESM played the Purple Tigers to a 1-1 draw. Kenney’s goal, assisted by Belcher, was the only time the Spartans got on the board as Nick Litzenberger scored for Cortland and Cody Wilk made nine saves.
Christian Brothers Academy met St. Joseph’s (Buffalo) last Saturday, a week removed from a Sept. 14 defeat to Fayetteville-Manlius, and could not quite get back into the win column, ending in a 2-2 draw with the Marauders.
All of the goals came in the first half, CBA answering St. Joseph’s by having Andrew Kohlbrenner score one goal and assist on the other, by Dayton Sievers. Neither team could break that deadlock the rest of the way as goalies Seamus Nicholson and Gabe Suarez combined for nine saves.
At 2-2 going into last week, Manlius-Pebble Hill went to Oneida’s Holy Cross Academy last Monday and, after a close first half, pulled away with four goals in the second half to prevail 5-0.
Five different players had the Trojans’ five goals. Brendan O’Malley augmented his single goal with two assists as Gopal Neopaney had one goal and one assist. The other goals went to Arman Nizam, Andrew Warren and Simon Hoke.
A day later, hosting Cato-Meridian, MPH broke out even more, bashing the Blue Devils 8-1 as it matched its total from the Holy Cross game in the first half alone and kept on going.
Again, the attack was well-balanced. Alex Fung was the only Trojan to score twice as Hoke got a goal and two assists. Jack Hogan and Max Fung each had one goal and one assist as Neopaney earned two assists. Other goals went to Ayman El-Hindi, Andrew Comprix and Casey Beach.
Bishop Grimes ran all over Onondaga last Thursday afternoon, the Cobras pounding the Tigers 8-1 as Bam Mugushu and Deng Mawien each scored three times, with Jack Gutchess getting the other two goals, plus a pair of assists.
This helped the Cobras rebound from a 4-1 defeat to Geneva (Section V) earlier in the week, Mugushu netting the lone goal, assisted by Mawien. Matt Tarby had 12 saves that night.
