The game-winner that wasn’t left the Fayetteville-Manlius boys lacrosse team swallowing their tongues and with the 9-8 overtime loss to Baldwinsville that put an end to its season in the semifinal round of the Section III Class A tournament.
Donovan Welsh scored what looked like the game-winner off of a restart as time expired in regulation, but officials claimed that it came after the buzzer sounded.
F-M’s head coach, Chris Kenneally, expressed his disappointment in the ruling after the loss, telling Syracuse.com that “the tape tells the story” and then saying, “the net moves, then the horn.”
Welsh added to the frustrations that the Hornet sideline experienced. “I think it should have counted,” he said, “I saw it hit the net, then the buzzer.” When that buzzer did sound and the game was over, Welsh had four assists.
Before the restart that led to Welsh’s no-goal, F-M had a series of exciting events. Their goalie, Ryan Boshart, saved a goal with under 30 seconds left and then their offense organized for a final possession.
Junior Nick Papa ended up with an opportunity to win the game after the defense and his fellow midfielders escorted the ball up the field. He found himself with a good look at the goal and whipped the ball in that direction just to hear it whiz by the goalie and hit the post and head behind the goal, which is when F-M scored what they thought was the game-winner.
As Welsh said, the ball was in the net before the clock reached zeroes. This video is the evidence.
Watching this video just proves that the Hornets played as hard as they could. What it doesn’t show is that every player on their team contributed to the game in a different way.
Midfielder Zak Van Valkenburg gave the Hornets lots of energy and did what he did all season and was dominant from the face-off circle, as he won 17 of 19 face-offs.
The sideline was engaged and grew more attentive as the game aged, but, from beginning to end, they were loud for their teammates.
And then two of Welsh’s teammates also had four points. Ryan Cicci had a good game and had two goals and two assists while Luke Burnam found the goal three times and mixed an assist in there.
James Rettinger and Luke Hamel also got on the board in the season finale and both scored a goal.
As well as F-M played, a controversial call in the final seconds looked to go Baldwinsville’s way may have cost them the game and their season.
