CICERO – Very few things went well for the Baldwinsville boys lacrosse team early in Friday night’s Section III Class A final against Liverpool at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
Jacob Czyz, the face-off specialist, broke his stick on the game’s opening draw. Shots went wide. Others went into the body of Warriors goalie Owen Salanger. And the Bees were kept off the scoreboard until early in the second quarter.
Yet as night fell and the clock hit zero an hour or so later, it was B’ville celebrating a third consecutive sectional championship, won by a 15-8 margin that did not reflect how long it took for the Bees to find that vaunted top form that had produced a 15-1 record and no. 4 state ranking.
“We were prepared for a test,” said junior attacker Keegan Lynch. “We knew it was going to be a dogfight.”
Liverpool had proved, in two regular-season meetings with B’ville, that it could stand with them for long stretches, even if those games went 15-10 and 13-8 in the Bees’ favor.
Charged up for this championship-game occasion, the Warriors played a sensational first quarter, whether it was Aaron Clouthier netting a pair of goals or Dom Osbeck finding the net as, on the other end, Salanger made a series of point-blank stops when B’ville wasn’t sending shots well off target.
Things almost got worse when an illegal stick for the Bees gave Liverpool a two-minute man-up situation to start the second quarter. But B’ville’s defense forced a turnover and burned off that penalty, along with another one-minute opportunity the Warriors had later in the period.
Meanwhile, Ryan Hollenbeck put the Bees on the board and Carson Dyl followed with a pair of goals, including one in the last minute of the half that cut Liverpool’s advantage to 4-3, all the while not allowing the heat of the situation to get to them.
“We just kept our energy steady, never too high or too low,” said Hollenbeck.
Lynch put it another way. “The more shots you take, some of them are going to go in,” he said.
They started to go in on a regular basis early in the third period, Lynch tying it 4-4 and, just 39 seconds later, feeeding Hollenbeck for the go-ahead goal. Then, after the Warriors briefly tied it 5-5, Czyz, with a new stick, claimed the ensuing faceoff, charged up the middle and beat Salanger just six seconds later, giving B’ville the lead for good.
Energized, the Bees went on a 5-0 run, Hollenbeck tacking on two more goals. Again when the Warriors scored, the answer was swift, Hollenbeck finding the net a mere 14 seconds later and Colin Doyle converting, too.
All told, B’ville outscored Liverpool 9-2 in that third period to take a 12-6 advantage, and when Clouthier scored twice early in the fourth quarter to cut it to 12-8, the Bees’ defense closed ranks and made sure the Warriors didn’t score again.
Hollenbeck finished with six goals and one assist, Lynch accumulating five assists as Doyle earned three goals. Trey Ordway had two goals and two assists as Leo Johnson, Bradyen Penafeather-Stevenson and Ryan Quinn added assists.
Next Saturday at 12:30, B’ville returns to Bragman Stadium to face Section IV champion Corning in the Class A regional final.
