CENTRAL NEW YORK – A single play, at a single time, can bring a team’s entire season full of accomplishment crashing down – or can lift them to greater heights.
Fortunately, in the case of the Westhill boys soccer team, it has kept finding ways to win, capping a tense and dramatic run to the Section III Class A championship by beating New Hartford 1-0 in double overtime Saturday at Fulton.
“When we face adversity, we always rise to it,” said senior captain Luke Infanti, whose corner kick set up the game-winning goal less than a minute before the Warriors and Spartans were to go to penalty kicks as co-champions.
Throughout the afternoon, Westhill and New Hartford had gone after one another, always trying to score, but not able to break a scoreless tie that almost lasted 110 minutes.
But then came that final minute, and one more Warriors push that led to one more corner kick from the right side.
Since he was a left-footer, Infanti took his turn with the cross, and fed it to the left post. Waiting there was sophomore Calvin Petrone, a reserve who had only scored two goals all season.
“The ball landed at my feet,” said Petrone. “I didn’t hit it too hard, but Luke put in a perfect ball.”
Petrone’s modest shot was enough to send it past New Hartford goalie Chris Suriano and into the net, setting off a wild celebration as Westhill players ran to the bleachers to celebrate with students yet another heart-pounding win in a post-season full of them.
The tension had started back on Oct. 20, when Whitesboro showed up at Westhill in a rain-drenched quarterfinal round and kept it scoreless until Owen Etoll’s overtime goal provided a 1-0 escape.
Even that was tame compared to what happened last Tuesday in the semifinal at Christian Brothers Academy’s Alibrandi Stadium, where no. 4 seed Jamesville-DeWitt was waiting.
Again, the 80 minutes of regulation went without a resolution or a goal, and this was despite the Warriors spending large portions of the game parked in the Red Rams’ end, all of its efforts to go in front proving futile.
That continued into the 30 minutes of overtime. A golden goal was within reach, but again Westhill was stymied, J-D goalile Adam Rigdon working his total to 17 saves in a valiant and superb effort.
So it went to penalty kicks, five on each side. But five rounds were not enough as the Warriors and Rams each missed once, conversions going to Etoll, Infanti, Jackson Goodness and Tim Cowin.
In the sixth round, Charlie DeMore made his biggest stop of the season, and when Benji McPeak found the net, Westhill was in the title game where, once more, it would show its ability to escape and excel.
