CAMDEN – Typically when a team is pursuing a championship claiming that title is the big moment, and Cicero-North Syracuse field hockey will agree if it takes the Section III Class A crown back from last year’s winner, Rome Free Academy.
Yet it’s difficult to ignore how the Northstars even got to Friday’s title game at Camden High School.
For more than two hours Sunday afternoon on that same Camden turf, C-NS and archrival Liverpool went at it in the sectional Class A semifinals.
Regulation time didn’t settle it. Nor did a pair of tense seven-on-seven overtime periods. Only in a shootout did the Northstars finally subdue the Warriors and earn its shot at the title.
These teams had met twice in the regular season and split those games, nearly assuring that things would be close again when the two reunited right after RFA pounded Fayetteville-Manlius 9-0 in the first semifinal.
For the most part, the defenses stayed in control. All that C-NS could manage was a goal by Addie Esce, and Liverpool was limited to Gianna Carbone’s tally.
Yet the game was mostly played in the Warriors’ end, with the Northstars getting a wave of scoring opportunities yet mostly getting turned back, Jenna Hayes amassing 10 saves in goal for Liverpool.
Overtime’s seven-on-seven format usually means a quick goal, which happened in two sectional semifinals the day before (Canastota over Mount Markham in Class C, Weedsport over Morrisville-Eaton in Class D), but not here.
So it came down to penalty strokes, where players run from midfield toward the net and get one chance to shoot it past the goalie. Three times C-NS beat Hayes, while none of Liverpool’s attempts got past Northstars goalie Olivia Planty.