VERONA – All through this fall, the Manlius Pebble Hill boys soccer team was motivated to get another title in honor of the coach, Don Ridall, who founded the program and retired after the 2021 season.
And the Trojans nearly got to the summit, only to get denied at the last step by Fabius-Pompey, who had plenty of motivation of its own and, by a 1-0 margin, edged MPH in Tuesday night’s sectional final at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School.
In the Falcons’ case, the hunger stemmed from reaching the sectional finals in Class C in 2019 (against Cooperstown) and Class D in 2021 (against Poland) and losing those games on both occasions.
Just getting here required F-P, the no. 4 seed, to survive penalty kicks in the quarterfinals against Hamilton and then upend top seed Poland in the semifinals.
MPH, from a no. 10 seed, had won three times away from home in the sectional tournament, topping McGraw 4-0 and then knocking off the no. 2 seed Lyme (2-1) and no. 3 seed Mater Dei Academy (1-0), earning a shot at a Falcons side it faced on Sept. 24 and lost 2-0.
Here, it would prove closer. The first half was a back-and-forth affair, each team getting some scoring chances yet unable to convert, which left the game 0-0 going into the break.
More than 20 minutes passed in the second half and the stalemate remained. Then, with 19 minutes left, F-P earned a corner kick on the left side. Taylor Keller’s pass found Dana Ingersoll, who bodied the ball past Will Markwood into the net.
From there, the Falcons were able to hang on, earning the sectional title and ending MPH’s first season under new head coach Tim Goldman with a 10-7-1 mark.
The Trojans should feel good about 2023, for though Markwood, Ayman El-Hindi and Alex Fung, the entire defensive unit – Jeff Pisciarino, Ayden Whitted, Brody Cook and Andy Lurvey – should return, as does many of the top front-line players.
