CENTRAL NEW YORK – A rush of games for the Fayetteville-Manlius and East Syracuse Minoa field hockey teams would precede the announcement of the Section III playoff pairings.
It didn’t look good for F-M to take a trip to Liverpool last Monday and see things get away late in a 4-1 defeat to the Warriors.
After back-to-back shutouts of Baldwinsville and Whitesboro, the Hornets fell behind 2-0 before getting on the board in the third quarter with a goal by Carlye Bryant.
Despite this, along with 13 saves from Emma Dobrovech, F-M watched as Liverpool spread around its attack, with goals from Mia Berthoff, Caitlyn Guilfoil, Bella Ames and Gianna Carbone by game’s end.
And these same two teams would meet again Friday night on the Hornets’ home turf. Again, F-M was forced into a defensive mode and did a stronger job of protection than in the first meet.
But the Warriors still took it 2-0, Carbone and Katia Flavin picking up goals and Liverpool’s defense limiting the Hornets to just two shots, a sharp contrast to the 16 saves Dobrovech had to make.
As for ESM, the Spartans’ season-long quest for a victory reached a successful conclusion at the last possible moment.
It came on Saturday afternoon, the Spartans facing Cortland and, inspired from start to finish, not only prevailed, but made it quite lopsided as it beat the Purple Tigers 3-0.
Prior to this, in last Tuesday’s game against Camden, the Spartans got on the board with Madeline Carr’s first-quarter goal, assisted by Addison Shepard, and were tied 1-1 going to the second period.
From there, though, ESM went quiet and the Blue Devils, scoring once in each period, prevailed 4-1, Maya Boots getting 10 saves, but Camden led by Rhyanne Johnson’s pair of goals.
Against Whitesboro 24 hours late, the Spartans again were kept off the board in a 4-0 defeat, meaning that it would have to beat Cortland Saturday to get into the win column – which it did.
That ended ESM’s season, but F-M got the no. 4 seed in the Section III Class A playoffs. In a six-team field, the Hornets will host no. 5 seed Baldwinsville Wednesday at 5 p.m. to see who would advance to face top seed Cicero-North Syracuse in the Oct. 24 semifinal at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill.
