What the Baldwinsville boys soccer team hoped to learn, in the course of last Saturday’s rain-soaked showdown with Fayetteville-Manlius, was whether it was in the same competitive position against the Hornets as it was then it lost to them in overtime Sept. 17 at Swan Pond.
The returns proved quite discouraging.
Overwhelmed from start to finish, the Bees fell 5-0 to F-M, who seized first place in the CNY Counties League and a likely top seed for the Section III playoffs by aggressively keeping B’ville on its heels for most of the afternoon.
Since they had first met, the Bees and Hornets had separated themselves from the rest of the CNYCL, meaning that whoever won this rematch not only had the inside track for league honors, but also the likely top seed for the Section III playoffs.
With so much at stake, getting an early goal can help calm the nerves, and 8:17 into the game F-M got it through a series of half-dozen passes that set up Hunter Knutsen alone in the left corner. With time to cross, Knutsen did so, and Riley Burke poked it past D.J. Moore to put the Hornets up 1-0.
What made that goal even more valuable was the fact that B’ville had only surrendered five goals all season, three of them to the Hornets, who were far from done in aggressively going after B’ville’s back line.
Even though it committed a series of fouls, F-M kept attacking, and drew a free kick 25 yards from the net in the 32nd minute. Josh Mahr took it, and fitted it perfectly inside the left post.
B’ville had to make a lot of defensive stops to keep it 2-0 going into halftime, but 23 seconds into the second half, thanks Mahr struck again, attacking up the middle and drawing the defenders before taking a shot that Moore stopped – but the rebound was easily converted by Cole Teelin.
Only now did B’ville start to wage its own series of attacks, constantly applying pressure that F-M kept resisting. It culminated with 10:39 left when the Bees earned a penalty kick, Ben Kinslow took – and F-M goalie Mike Baril dove to his right to save it.
Six minutes later, Mahr was fouled inside the 18-yard box and didn’t miss on his penatly kick that made it 4-0, with Max Staniec adding a final goal, assisted by Teelin, in the waning minutes as things got more physical and testy.
Of course, there were steps to take before F-M showed up, and the state no. 14-ranked Bees didn’t trip on any of them, including last Tuesday night’s trip to Camillus, where B’ville stayed patient, and was rewarded with a 3-0 shutout over West Genesee.
Though at 1-10, the Wildcats had only lost 2-0 to the Bees in mid-September, so it wasn’t a total surprise that WG kept things close most of the way, getting 11 total saves from David Wenner and Peter Bowman.
Up 1-0 at halftime, B’ville waited, and then broke through twice in the game’s latter stages to lower the stress level. Jensen Stan, Brandon Mimas and Evan Smith all netted goals, with assists going to Mike Brussel, Kevin Starr and Jack Timmons. Moore stopped all eight shots he faced.
One more hurdle remained, Thursday against a Nottingham team F-M had just beat 5-0 to give long-time head coach Jeff Hammond his 450th career win. Though the Bulldogs were closer on this occasion and it stayed scoreless for a while, the Bees still prevailed by a 2-0 margin.
They were 0-0 going into halftime, Nottingham’s defense just as difficult to solve as it was in a 1-0 B’ville victory on Sept. 14. Again, though, the Bees’ defense was on its way to a shutout, and was rewarded when Stan took over, scoring one goal and assisting on the other, by Jacob Guidone, while Michael Allen assisted on Stan’s tally.
None of this would indicate what would happen against F-M, which left the Bees with plenty to work on in this last week of the regular season, B’ville’s lone game a Thursday-night trip to Gillette Road to face Cicero-North Syracuse at 6:30.