With aggression and purpose, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls soccer team only needed one half to get even for its lone defeat of the season – or, to put it more accurately, it took less than 35 minutes.
That was the span where the Hornets jumped all over the Bees Monday night, netting four unanswered goals and cruising from there to a 4-1 victory which provided a big boost to F-M’s hopes of repeating as Section III Class AA champions.
When these teams first met Sept. 17 at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, the Hornets lost 2-0, surrendering both goals late in regulation, but felt that it had given away plenty of opportunities in the game’s middle stages, unable to convert on several set pieces.
So in the week leading up to the rematch with the Bees, plenty of time was spent working on those set pieces, but as it turned out all of the Hornets’ scoring plays took place during the normal flow of play.
F-M had even more reason to be aggressive because B’ville was without its top goalkeeper, Jenna Boutilier. Sophomore Isabella Cartier replaced Boutilier, and the Hornets immediately tested her.
Just 3:57 into the game, Anna Hartzheim sent a pass toward the net, where Hannah Knych’s low shot slipped past the goal line. Less than four minutes later, it was 2-0, Chloe Hodge’s pass hitting Lauren Clark in full stride and Clark ripping a low shot that Cartier could not stop.
Not content with this, F-M continued its regular attacks, and in the 24th minute Hartzheim, gathering the ball at the point amid another sustained push, crushed a hard left-footed shot past a diving Cartier and inside the right post.
Even when Hannah Johnson replaced Cartier in goal, F-M was relentless. In the 35th minute, it was eighth-grader Morgan Goodman finding the net, poking in the rebound of a Lauren Farrella shot that Johnson could not gather in.
Behind all this was a superb effort from the Hornets’ defense, with freshman Alora Miller leading that effort as she tracked B’ville’s Simone Neivel throughout the night and rarely gave her space to produce.
Elsewhere on the back line, senior captains Laura Bonomo and Haley Ingram, helped by sophomore Ryann Dauksza, kept the rest of the Bees, especially top goal-scorer Hannah Mimas, never allowing them anything more than long-range shots that Sydney Mahr handled until Neivel scored with less than two minutes left.
F-M had another challenge on Thursday when it visited West Genesee, a team it only beat 2-1 earlier this season. And it was close in the rematch, too, but again the Hornets prevailed, this time 1-0.
Keeping the ball in WG’s end throughout the first half, F-M’s pressure paid off when a Wildcats turnover led to Clark putting in a goal in the 31st minute.
From there, the Hornets could not add to that margin, thwarted by an effective WG defense that did its best defending set pieces. But the Wildcats were rarely able to sustain an attack and, whenever it did pressure late, F-M turned them back.
Meanwhile, the F-M boys soccer team, up to no. 10 in the latest state Class AA rankings after its weather-shortened 2-2 draw with Baldwinsville on Oct. 1, ripped past Corcoran 8-1 last Tuesday night.
Six first-half goals set the tone, Cheech Pagano ultimately finding the net four times as Ziad Abdul-Malak got three assists. Riley Warren-Nichols, Nino Pagano, Ryan Pollard and Tyler Goodman earned one goal apiece and goalie Chris Szidat got credit for an assist, along with Corey Gallagher.
Now visiting the Gillette Road complex to face Cicero-North Syracuse on Thursday, F-M broke out again and bashed the Northstars 6-1, this time with Abdul-Malak earning the three-goal hat trick, plus an assist. Cheech Pagano added two goals, with Pollard also converting as Goodman and Nino Pagano both earned assists.
