All that is left for the Fayetteville-Manlius girls soccer team to achieve was one more victory than it got in 2019, when it ran all the way to the state Class AA championship game before getting stopped by Monroe-Woodbury – a quest altered when COVID-19 wiped out all fall post-season competition.
Move to the boys side, and F-M had plenty more unfinished business to consider, its championship dreams dashed by a stunning Section III Class AA quarterfinal defeat to Liverpool where it could not get on the scoreboard and was ousted in penalty kicks.
It just so happened that Liverpool was the boys Hornets’ first opponent in this abbreviated 2020 campaign Saturday afternoon at LHS Stadium, and with enough motivation built up by an 11-month wait, F-M dominated the day, bashing the Warriors 7-0.
Another shutout took place with the F-M girls, though this one was far closer, the Hornets needing all 80 minutes along with plenty of patience to claim its own 2-0 decision over Liverpool.
From those 2019 state Class AA finalists, the F-M girls saw 11 seniors graduate, none more important than the star trio of midfielder Anna Hartzheim, forward Hannah Knych and defender Laura Bonomo.
Yet that still left coach Brett Ostrander with plenty of talent on hand, ranging from young strikers like junior Lauren Clark and ninth-grader Morgan Goodman to senior Sydney Mahr in goal.
Together, they would find Liverpool a stubborn season-opening foe, not going away even after Clark converted off Goodman’s corner kick in the first half.
It stayed 1-0 for a while, the Hornets patient while the Warriors defended well, one counter-attack from pulling even until, with seven minutes left, another corner kick clinched it, this time with Goodman scoring.
Meanwhile, at Liverpool, the F-M boys soccer side was quite eager to deal with Liverpool, especially the veteran players whose previous season ended at the Warriors’ expense.
In particular, the brother tandem of junior Nino Pagano and senior Cheech Pagano wanted payback, and started to get it when Nino Pagano put a long shot into the net less than 11 minutes into the game.
Ty Teelin’s well-placed chip shot past a charging Evan Buda made it 2-0 in the 23rd minute, but the real getaway came late in the first half, the Hornets scoring three times in a span of four minutes.
Cheech Pagano started the spurt by hitting a long shot from 30 yards out. Ziad Abdul-Malak quickly followed with a long blast from the right side, and then it got to 5-0 when Cheech Pagano’s pass from the left was headed home by Nino Pagano.
Early in the second half, a series of well-timed passes set up Nino Pagano back-heeling a point-blank shot home to complete his hat trick. With the starters out, Ryan Freyer added another goal with 11:11 left.
Both F-M teams have three games next week, meeting Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division rivals Cicero-North Syracuse and West Genesee before Saturday showdowns with their neighbors from Jamesville-DeWitt.
