For 13 years, the West Genesee girls soccer team was merely a spectator, watching as the area’s other large-school powerhouses traded the Section III Class AA championship among them, never even reaching the championship game.
Finally, in 2019, the Wildcats made a return to the sectional finals, doing so in an unlikely manner as it tried to upend both of the heavy favorites for the title.
The first part of this quest was undertaken last Wednesday night, at Central Square, when WG rode a superb defense and a well-timed scoring flurry to a 2-0 win over no. 2 seed Baldwinsville.
Little that happened before this game hinted at its outcome. The Wildcats had lost to the Bees in both regular-season meetings (by scores of 3-1 and 2-1), and B’ville had reached four consecutive sectional finals.
However, the Bees had not played in 11 days when it took the field for this third encounter with the Wildcats, who had worked its way past Rome Free Academy by that same 2-0 margin in the opening round on Oct. 25.
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.
This 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.
Gratifying as this win was, it was only half the task. Now, to win the sectional championship, WG would need to knock off top seed and defending champion Fayetteville-Manlius Saturday at Liverpool High School Stadium.
Ultimately, that proved too difficult as the Hornets, utilizing its talent and experience, controlled matters from the outset and did not let up until it had knocked off the Wildcats in a 3-0 decision.
F-M remembered how the Wildcats had battled them hard in 2-1 and 1-0 decisions during the regular season, and knew the primary challenge was trying to work against that tough, experienced WG defense.
Indeed, throughout the early stages the back line of Ani Castro, Julia Matticio, Katrina Tessier and Maddie Van Dyke did a solid job of frustrating the Hornets’ forwards, and Croft, again playing the first half, made a series of terrific stops.
But in the 32nd minute the Hornets put something together that no defender could stop. Terrific passes from Anna Hartzheim and eighth-grader Morgan Goodman set up Hannah Knych for a one-timed low shot that found the net.
F-M ably protected that one-goal lead deep into the second half as its own defense, led by seniors Haley Ingram and Laura Bonomo, never let WG’s forwards find much space whenever they had the ball.
Then Hartzheim offered a decisive blow with 12:39 left. Lined up for a free kick in the middle of the field, Hartzheim noticed that WG’s second goalie, Caitlin Mills, was at the right side of the net behind her wall of defenders, so she shot left – and drilled it home.
Lauren Clark added a third goal with 3:02 left, and the Wildcats’ season was done, but the mere fact that it got to the sectional title game was a tribute to all the work 16 seniors had done to slowly build the program into a contender again.
