No matter how many previous times they had experienced the pain of a defeat a step or two short of where it wanted to finish, it didn’t make things any easier for the Jamesville-DeWitt girls soccer team – especially on this occasion.
A senior-laden, battle-tested Red Rams team again made its way to the state Class A final four – and again got upended, this time in a 1-0 defeat to Long Island’s Shoreham-Wading River in Saturday’s state Class A semifinal at SUNY-Cortland.
Yet the J-D girls were not alone in feeling this acute pain.
About 150 miles to the east, at Middletown High School, the boys soccer Red Rams, in its third state semifinal appearance (it previously made it in 2010 and 2014), took a 2-0 loss to Section V’s Greece Athena.
The contrast, of course, was that the girls Red Rams had all kinds of experience on its side as it went to Cortland, not to mention a no. 1 state ranking in the wake of surviving penalty kicks with Section II’s Mohonasen in the regional final a week earlier.
Many of the seven J-D senior starters (Katie Cappelletti, Grace Dimkopoulos, Tonia Kousmanidis, Sydney Baker, Ava Brazie, Gace Bridge and Denise Yaeger) were part of four teams that, from 2015 to 2018, reached at least the state semifinals, and even got to the title game, only to get denied.
Convinced that, this time, it would finally all turn in its favor, the Rams watched as the first state Class A semifinal between Spencerport and Pearl River (two sides that had stopped J-D short in years past) went to penalty kicks, too, with the Section V Rangers prevailing.
That long wait to get underway may have affected the Rams because Shoreham-Wading River put together a sharp series of passes and, less than 90 seconds into the game, converted when Ashley Borriello scored off a feed from Gianna Cacciola.
More than 78 minutes remained in regulation – but that single goal would hold up.
In large part, that was due to a Wildcats defense that smothered every J-D attempt to establish an attack. For much of the game, S-WR had four players on the back line, and together they broke up runs and made sure that goalkeeper Alison Devall did not have to do much work.
Protecting that one-goal margin in the second half, the Wildcats were particularly good in the homestretch. When the Rams needed possession, S-WR smartly kept the ball, worked it to the corners and slowly put an end to J-D’s season.
Earlier on Saturday, things kicked off before 9 a.m. at Middletown, where J-D’s boys team hoped that its improbable run (beating the top three seeds to win the Section III title and then topping Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake 1-0 in the regional final) was not done.
Greece Athena cared little for the Rams’ improbable run, though, and patiently controlled matters from the outset. Though it didn’t get the quick goal that Shoreham-Wading River’s girls did, the Trojans could afford patience.
And in the 25th minute, Greece Athena earned a corner kick where Dylan Rice crossed and Ryan Fitzgerald’s header found its way past Rams goalie Matt Gera. From there, J-D’s defense settled down, but it still trailed 1-0 at the break.
All through the second half, the Rams probed for an equalizing goal, but were unable to find it. Instead, the Trojans put in a clincher with 16:02 to play, Brian Piendel finding the net.
This defeat could not diminish what J-D accomplished, though, and though nine seniors graduate, including Jacob Barry, Alex Pomeroy and Jackson Carmen, a big cast, featuring Gera, Patrick David, Tshike David, Zach McBennett, Lucas Bort, Will Quackenbush and Johnny Keib, could return for 2020.
