According to the plan, the Baldwinsville girls soccer team was going to make its way back to Liverpool High School Stadium and, exactly one year after surrendering the Section III Class AA title to Fayetteville-Manlius, take the crown back from the Hornets.
Only the Bees never got there.
In last Wednesday night’s AA semifinal at Central Square, B’ville was upended 2-0 by West Genesee, who put in both of its goals late in the first half and then shut down any attempts by the Bees to catch up.
Little that happened before this game hinted at its outcome. B’ville had defeated the Wildcats in both regular-season meetings (by scores of 3-1 and 2-1) on the way to a no. 12 state ranking, and had reached four consecutive sectional finals.
However, a small concern may have sprung from the fact that the Bees had not played in 11 days when it took the field for this third encounter with the Wildcats, though that didn’t seem to bother top seed F-M that much as, in similar circumstances, it beat Cicero-North Syracuse 3-1 in the first semifinal.
From the outset, WG did not sit back, getting as many good runs as B’ville while its senior-laden defense tailed the duo of Hannah Mimas and Simone Neivel everywhere, rarely letting them get open looks.
Then, in the 34th minute, the Wildcats went in front on Ellen Kearney’s shot that flew past Isabella Cartier and found the net. Before the Bees could even recover, a net scramble led to Emily Dunning doubling WG’s margin just two minutes, 28 seconds later.
The speed in which B’ville incurred that two-goal deficit produced a shift of momentum that the Bees could not counter, especially with Neivel missing key portions of the second half due to injury. Still, it took 14 shots, all of them scooped up by Wildcats goalies Liz Croft and Caitlin Mills.
B’ville finished 14-3 overall, its season full of wondrous numbers, especially from Mimas and Neivel, but also untimely injuries to, among others, goalie Jenna Boutilier and defender Mackaleyn Neivel late in the season.
It was a stark contrast to what happened when B’ville’s boys soccer team met West Genesee in its sectional Class AA semifinal earlier that same night at Jamesville-DeWitt.
These Bees handled those Wildcats 5-1, a departure from the tense pair of regular-season encounters these two had, with B’ville bent on avoiding the kind of scare Rome Free Academy gave them in a 1-0 quarterfinal on Oct. 24.
Just 5:25 into the game, Brennan Walsh scored to give B’ville a 1-0 edge. Walsh then made it 2-0 seven minutes later, and before the half-hour mark, Evan Smith and Tyler Johnson had found the net to double the Bees’ margin.
Only a series of great stops by WG goalies Josh Ferrell and Alex Toumbacaris kept B’ville from adding more in the early stages, and in the second half Malik Davis tacked on another goal, assisted by Johnson.
This leads the Bees to Monday night’s sectional final at J-D at 7:30 against an unlikely opponent – no. 7 seed Liverpool, who shocked Fayetteville-Manlius in the quarterfinals in penalty kicks, then rallied past Henninger 3-1 in the semifinals.
