Five games, five opponents – and five shutouts for the Cicero-North Syracuse field hockey team in what is quickly turning into a special season, even if there are no championship rewards.
Of those early-season wins, none were as impressive as Tuesday night’s 2-0 victory over defending Section III Class A champion Baldwinsville at Bragman Stadium, which showcased all of the reasons why C-NS is so good.
It helped, no doubt, that the Northstars had played four times, while the Bees had just one game (a 4-1 win over East Syracuse Minoa) in the books and had dealt with heavy graduation losses from its 2019 team.
Still, C-NS worked with poise and patience through the game’s early stages, deftly defending when B’ville had a pair of penalty corners.
Then, late in the first quarter, a Northstars penalty corner turned into a goal, Jamie Snyder sending a shot to the net that a well-positioned Gia DiToma deflected past Bees goalie Cara Vredenburg.
For the rest of the half, C-NS applied more pressure, yet could not add to that 1-0 margin and would have to absorb a string of B’ville runs in a scoreless third quarter.
Led by Anna Melfi, Alyssa Christensen and Julianna Hutt, the Northstars’ back line often broke up the Bees’ runs, and goalie Lexi Wagner turned back six shots overall.
Still, the game wasn’t sealed until another penalty corner with 3:09 left in regulation. This time, Snyder’s pass found Melfi at the point, and the senior crushed a hard shot that Vredenburg had no chance to stop.
C-NS then went for six in a row with its own game against ESM on Saturday afternoon. Here, the shutout streak ended – but the win streak remained alive after the Northstars stopped the Spartans 4-1.
It was Rileigh White getting the goal for ESM to answer an initial tally from Allison Cole, but perhaps allowing a goal eased the pressure on C-NS, who went up 2-1 before the first quarter ended as Gabby Wameling converted.
Snyder returned to the forefront to assist on Shannon Brown’s second-quarter goal, and in the third period a further cushion came when DiToma scored again, assisted by Chrissy Wagner
ESM arrived at this game fresh off having taken on Liverpool Thursday night, and it was the Warriors finally breaking its three-game skid at the Spartans’ expense in a 2-1 decision.
Chloe Muller proved the spark for Liverpool. Two times, once in each half, it was Muller”s passes which set up goals as Gianna Carbone and Juila Barbour each found the net.
Though ESM would get a second-half goal from Olviia Grabowski, it was mostly kept in its own end by a relentless Liverpool attack, Spartans goalie Maura Leib having to make 14 saves.
