DEWITT – Given the opponent, and the way it ended, Cicero-North Syracuse boys soccer head coach Mike McCaffery said it was one of the most satisfying victories in his three-plus decades coaching the Northstars.

Such was the description of the 1-0, double-overtime win over defending champion Fayetteville-Manlius in Wednesday’s Section III Class AA semifinal at Christian Brothers Academy’s Alibrandi Stadium.

For more than 90 tense minutes, the two long-time league rivals engaged one another, neither side getting a goal as the defenses continually made key stops.

Then, early in the second OT period, with penalty kicks looming, C-NS earned a free kick just inside F-M’s end of the field, but still more than 50 yards from the Hornets’ net.

As he had done many times before, senior goalkeeper Wyatt Dupell ran up to take the free kick. His low, hard drive went straight to F-M goalie Jake Lavelle, and eluded his grasp before finding the top of the net.

With that “golden goal”, the Northstars earned a berth in next Tuesday’s sectional final at Phoenix against no. 6 seed West Genesee, who after upending no. 3 seed Liverpool in penalty kicks topped no. 2 seed Utica Proctor 2-1 in the other semifinal.

That it even got to this point was mostly a tribute to the way C-NS had improved on defense from its regular-season meetings with F-M, a 1-1 draw in September and 4-1 defeat in early October.

Knowing that it had to stop Hornets forward Joe Donnelly, who led the league with 21 goals and 11 assists, C-NS had Zack Scott and Aaron Huksic take turns in the middle of the field marking and trailing him throughout the game, which proved successful.

Outside, it was Jacob Dietter and Adam Bonnier covering F-M’s other front-line players and shutting them down, too. Still, the Hornets took nine shots, all of which Dupell stopped.

Even though he had taken free kicks before, the game-winner was Dupell’s first goal of the season, and set up the final with West Genesee, a team with which C-NS split its two previous outings.