CENTRAL NEW YORK – Unbeaten through nine games, the Bishop Ludden boys soccer team found itself sitting at no. 11 in last week’s state Class C rankings.
To begin its October slate the Gaelic Knights faced Mater Dei Academy last Wednesday night and, scoring twice in each half, rolled to a 4-0 victory.
Colden Sheen netted two of Ludden’s goals, with the others going to Avery Nevil and Brayden Adika. Finn Casey and Luke Ruddy joined Adika in the assist column, while the defense limited Mater Dei to a mere three shots.
When Ludden faced Manlius Pebble Hill on Friday afternoon it remembered how the Trojans gave the Gaelic Knights its only blemish this season in a 1-1 draw two weeks earlier.
Again it proved close, but Ludden prevailed 2-1 as Nevil earned assists on goals by Ruddy and Jimmy Westers to negate Andy Lurvey’s tally and a second-half shutout made the difference.
Meanwhile, West Genesee found itself in a slump that it could not pull out of in Tuesday’s game at Cicero-North Syracuse where it lost 1-0 in overtime to the Northstars.
Eighty minutes of regulation featured a stout C-NS defense which had shut out Henninger and Corcoran/ITC the week before and, here, limited the Wildcats to five shots, all stopped by Tyler Munnich.
In regulation the Northstars had plenty of its own chances, only to get turned back. This changed in the first OT period when Titus Dimitroff, taking a pass from Dante Melfi, put it past Boston Crandall and into the WG net.
Another close game on Thursday night brought another close defeat, this one at Baldwinsville, where the Bees prevailed 3-2 to avenge the Sept. 17 overtime defeat to the Wildcats.
Sasha Pushkarenko got a goal that helped WG break a scoring drought, but B’ville broke out of a 1-1 halftime tie helped by Owen Daly, Jack Dutter and Will Stevens each putting in goals.
Solvay nearly erased a 2-0 halftime deficit Tuesday against Mexico but still lost, 4-3, to the Tigers. Justin Zimmerman led the comeback attempt scoring twice and assisting on a Niko Lewis Mulvey goal, but the Bearcats allowed two more and could not quite force overtime.
However, Solvay did win on Thursday night, edging Phoenix 2-1. Overcoming a second-half Firebirds goal, Solvay had Zimmerman and Rahil Ramez convert, with Vadym Vitrovyi adding an assist and each of Santiago
Hernandez Suarez’s seven saves an important one.
Jordan-Elbridge/Cato-Meridian was overwhelmed by Cazenovia Tuesday in a 6-0 defeat, the Lakers improving to 10-1 by building a 4-0 halftime advantage and continuing from there, Eli Royer leading the way with two goals and one assist.
Four days later, J-E/Cato was successful against a large school, defeating Auburn 3-2 as Collin Tiel scored twice and Ayden Campion added a goal, all in the first half, to build a 3-1 edge and the Eagles held on from there thanks to goalie Alex Kunz stopping 13 of the 15 shots he faced.
