Though only a couple of weeks had passed, the Liverpool boys soccer team still bore the scars from its rough early-season showings against Fayetteville-Manlius and Baldwinsville.
It just so happened that the second encounters with both of these established powers came within the same week, and while improvement was evident, a gap still remained.
First it was a trip to Swan Pond last Tuesday night, where the Warriors encountered the same undefeated F-M side that blitzed them for seven goals in their Oct. 3 opener.
Here, it was far closer (and the conditions far more difficult due to the rain and natural surface), but Liverpool again could not get on the board in a 3-0 defeat.
Nino Pagano, who netted a three-goal hat trick in that first meeting, took a supporting role here, merely getting an assists as the F-M trio of Cheech Pagano, Ziad Abdul-Malak and Sam Duncanson got one goal apiece
Then it was Friday’s game with Baldwinsville, who was coming off a 1-0 defeat to West Genesee. And the Warriors would push the Bees, too, only to take a 2-1 overtime defeat.
It was Liverpool getting the jump thanks to Jacob Chajkowski’s unassisted goal in the first half, though Malik Davis quickly answered for B’ville.
And it would stay 1-1 through the rest of the first half, the entire second half and most of the two OT periods, with the Warriors getting lots of opportunities but unable to get another one past B’ville goalie Owen Tracy.
All told, Tracy made 10 saves, and he got rewarded when Davis, in the second OT, returned to put in the game-winner.
Before that, on Thursday night Cicero-North Syracuse got its own turn against F-M at Swan Pond and got as close as anyone has to the Hornets all season, dragging the game into overtime before taking a 1-0 defeat.
It was far different from the 5-1 romp between these two sides earlier in the month. Through 80 minutes of regulation, the Northstars turned back everything F-M threw at them.
It was only in the first OT period that the Hornets won it when Pagano scored off a feed from Tyler Goodman, the Northstars’ record falling to 2-4 overall.
C-NS did bounce back Saturday, edging Whitesboro 1-0 as Zayne Throckmorton’s goal, assisted by Will Darko, held up, though Whitesboro goalie Dominic Restive did make 10 saves.
All of this would lead to the C-NS-Liverpool rematch on Wednesday night, with a Northstars game against West Genesee moved back to Nov. 12 and the Warriors facing Jamesville-DeWitt Saturday.
