CENTRAL NEW YORK – Both at home and on the road, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool girls soccer teams dreamed about getting to play for the Section III Class AA championship, perhaps against one anohter.
Neither side got there, though, as they were defeated in their respective semifinals Wednesday night, with the no. 2 seed Northstars falling at home 2-1 to Fayetteville-Manlius and the no. 4 seed Warriors toppled by top seed West Genesee 4-1 in Camillus.
In C-NS’s case, facing F-M meant dealing with a side it had lost to by 1-0 and 4-2 margins in the regular season, and things were rough from the outset in this third encounter.
Wasting no time, F-M took advantage of a Northstars foul inside the 18-yard box in the opening minutes as Morgan Goodman converted the penalty kick.
Minutes later, it was 2-0, Goodman scoring again, and though more than 70 minutes remained in the contest, the Hornets had already notched the winning goals.
Throughout the first half and most of the second half, F-M’s defense put up an effective wall, not letting the Northstars attack inside or outside.
All of that changed when, with 14:51 left, McKenzie Slate got around Mackenzie Murphy and passed to Maya Germain, who converted to cut the Hornets’ margin to one.
Energized by this, C-NS attacked hard the rest of the way, forcing free kicks and corner kicks. Every time, though, F-M turned them back, Murphy working her total to eight saves.
Earlier that night, Liverpool paid a visit to West Genesee, with whom it had split two regular-season meetings. And here, like with C-NS, the Warriors fell into a quick two-goal deficit.
In less than three minutes the Wildcats were up 1-0 thanks to a goal by Sophia Snyder. Maintaining this momentum, WG doubled the margin four minutes later when sophomore Tori Hulbert netted her first varsity goal.
Liverpool used a goal by Jailyn Parrotte to cut the margin to 2-1 by halftime, and deep into the second half it remained that way before the Wildcats closed strong.
Midway through the half, Scout Oudemool put one past Warriors goalie Emily Rath, and it was clinched when Maddy Mango converted with less than two minutes to play.
Like Hulbert, Oudemool and Mango had netted their first goals of the season. Snyder, Gio Vigliotti and Ellie McMahon each had one assist as, between them, Julia Poissant and Jenna Orr stopped 11 of Liverpool’s 12 shots.
