Through most of the last 12 months, the Baldwinsville girls soccer team lived with the knowledge that it squandered an opportunity to wrest the Section III Class AA crown from Fayetteville-Manlius.
The sting of that 2019 sectional semifinal defeat to West Genesee, and the Hornets’ subsequent run to the state Class AA final, left Bees partisans to wonder if it would have interrupted those plans had it defeated the Wildcats first.
Not until Monday afternoon did B’ville finally confront F-M again, but even on familiar home turf at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, the Bees were shut down in a 2-0 defeat the Hornets.
As it won its first three games – a payback agianst West Genesee, followed by solid victories over Liverpool and Jamesville-DeWitt – B’ville had leaned most of its attack on senior forward Hannah Mimas, who had netted six of her team’s eight goals.
F-M knew this, and centered its defense on slowing up Mimas wherever possible. It didn’t always work, but Mimas and her teammates saw all six of their shots stopped by Hornets goalie Sydney Mahr.
As for the Bees’ back line, it honed in on F-M’s potent senior forward, Lauren Clark, but she proved elusive enough to put in one goal and assist on the other, by Sophia TenEyck, as Morgan Goodman picked up an assist.
Now, as B’ville hoped to do better in the Oct. 30 rematch at F-M, it turned toward Thursday’s game against Cicero-North Syracuse on the turf at Bragman Stadium.
And this game also ended up 2-0 – but in the Bees’ favor, a direct result of Mimas returning to goal-scoring form and a defense which continued to show its improvement.
It took a half-hour before Mimas put her team in front in the 30th minute. C-NS didn’t sit back most of the way, earning a series of quality opportunities.
Jenna Boutilier would stop all eight shots she faced, though, and the pressure eased a bit when Mimas netted her second goal in the 52nd minute.
Three more games loom for B’ville next week, starting Monday at West Genesee, continuing Wednesday against New Hartford and concluding Friday with a visit from Liverpool.
