Champs

South Side girl's soccer scores perfect season

      In short measures, life may be perfect.
      The South Side girls' soccer team, becoming the first in New York to maintain perfection throughout an entire championship season, has now officially met each and every challenge placed before it this year.
Not the least challenging was defeating Webster High School in its home city of Rochester last Saturday, before 1,000 mostly partisan spectators at Wheatland Chili High School. With their 1-0 victory, South Side earned its ninth state soccer crown since 1987, and its first in Class A. The Cyclones had dominated Monroe-Woodbury in the semifinal game on Friday, 4-1, before putting the finishing touch on a perfect 20-0 season the next afternoon.
But there was one thing for which the Cyclones, and in particular, their six seniors, were not prepared: their perfect season coming to an end.
      "It's so sad now that it's over. I don't even want to think about it," said senior goalkeeper Meredith Finch, who admitted to a bit of nostalgia even as she turned in her uniform for the last time on Monday. "I'll miss the girls and Mr. Bigelow; this team was like no other. We had such a tight-knit team."
      But even though Finch, 24-goal scorer Liz Roberti, Kaitlyn Dowling, Jessica Piccolo, Amy Muller and Laura Cimini have played their last game for South Side, and leave with three state titles in tow, Coach Bob Bigelow assured that the memories will last a lifetime.
      "This is one weekend that they will remember for the rest of their lives," he said before the team left for the tournament last week.
      There will be plenty to look back on; the only time the departing seniors ended a season other than with a state championship was last year, the Cyclones' first in Class A, when Walt Whitman of Suffolk County beat them in a shootout for the Long Island title. South Side exacted its revenge on Nov. 12, when it defeated Whitman, 1-0, in this year's Long Island final.
      It appears that the one aspect of their game the Cyclones haven't mastered, even after having enjoyed so much success, is the victory dance. Of course, the players celebrated in the traditional way, with hugs and high-fives, after little-used sophomore Katherine Stritzl scored what turned out to be the championship-winning goal on Saturday, just her fifth score of the season, with only ten minutes left to play.
       But even after the final whistle blew, there wasn't the great exultation one would expect from a group that had just gone eye-to-eye with its last opponent and come away, yet again, unscathed.
      "We were pretty excited at the time [of the goal], but after the game we were just tired," Stritzl said. "The bus ride home seemed to take a lot longer than the ride up."
      "We watched a lot of movies," said Finch.
      "They're kind of used to it," explained Bigelow, who has been at the South Side helm for 20 years.
      Stritzl, who was feeling ill and wasn't even sure she would be able to play, was a little surprised to get the call when she did. But Bigelow had faith. As did Finch. "Nobody could have done it better than Katherine," the goalkeeper said. "I'm so glad that she got the opportunity to play."
      Not surprising, Webster was one of the most resilient opponents South Side faced all year, Finch said. "We just couldn't score against them. But they didn't really get many shots, either." Finch, who posted her 15th shutout of the season, made five saves in the game. The Cyclones allowed just five goals all season.
      Stritzl said that Webster's near-home-field advantage was diminished by the enthusiasm of the Cyclones' fans who made the trip. "There were four big bleachers, and three of them were filled with Webster fans. But our fans cheered the hardest," she said. "They were pretty loud, considering how badly they were outnumbered."
      Bigelow said that even though this year's team crafted such perfection, it won't necessarily be the team against which all others are measured. "I can't say this is the best team I've had, but they were the first to go undefeated, so they'll always have that."
       With the seniors graduating, including co-captains Finch and Roberti, there will be several changes and the Cyclones will have to find a new identity. "We're going to be missing a few of our players next season," Bigelow said. "Yeah, we're going to miss them a lot," he said.
      They were a young team, carrying three freshmen, eight sophomores and nine juniors on the roster. And now the team belongs to them. And each will have at least one state championship experience to reflect upon. Next year and always.
      Perfect.