8/30 Most Valuable Thoughts: Fayetteville-Manlius @ Jamesville-Dewitt Girls Soccer

Jamesville-Dewitt 2, Fayetteville-Manlius 1

On Friday, I had the pleasure of making the trip from Utica to Syracuse and back… twice. Once was to get soaked watching Fall Out Boy at the State Fair, but the other was to catch a girls soccer opener between two squads looking to be contenders in their respective classes. I have my worries about how awful the first game of the year can look for teams, but this game wasn’t half-bad. Let’s get to it.

Fayetteville-Manlius, who returned some girls, but lost their leading goal-scorer from a team that lost in the AA final last season, started the game off strong. Good possession game and some crafty play from Alexis Muraco up top gave them some early control and scoring opportunities. However, they came up empty in this spurt, which may have come back to bite them. Jamesville-Dewitt, who made it all the way to the state final in A last year, needed some time to get going. They graduated Jessica Holmes (now at Boston College) and Maddy Devereaux (Hobart & William Smith), but still have many key pieces from last season intact. They looked a bit sluggish through the first 30 minutes, but were able to even up play late in the first half, generating some scoring opportunities and keeping pressure away from returning goalie Allison Butler. That being said, the game was still scoreless at half. It remained the same until the last 16 minutes… then that changed. Quickly. The Red Rams had knocked on the door a couple times in the previous few minutes before, and with 15:57 left, Paige Sherling did the honors for J-D, putting one through the pipes to open up the scoring. I barely had enough time to relax before the Hornets’ Rachel Dise made a pretty play around 3 J-D defenders and evened the score with 12:32 to go. But wait, we’re not done yet! Barely over a minute after that, Julia (not to be confused with Julie) Slisz played a pretty ball through on the left side to Allie Balotin, who poked it past F-M’s keeper to give J-D a 2-1 lead with 11:21 showing on the clock. Both teams had some daylight late, with the Hornets getting the last peppering in, but the score remained, and J-D picked up a nice opening W over a tough F-M squad. It just looked like the Hornets ran out of gas during a period of time where the Red Rams were firing away. J-D is now of course 1-0, and F-M is 0-1.

All-in-all, the game was pretty evenly matched, as depicted by the official stats no one cares about or includes in the games, aptly titled the MVT Rudolph stats. F-M attempted more shots (13-10), but more of J-D’s shots were on goal (7-4). Keeper stats were pretty much even – 5 F-M saves to 3 J-D, but 8 non-save keeper touches for J-D compared to 5 for F-M. Relatively evenly matched game that I wouldn’t mind seeing again later in the season!