WHAT A RUN: Section IX’s Mount Academy fends off Fillmore’s late 2nd half rally, hand Lady Eagles first loss with 2-1 State Semifinal win to end their season

Written By Chris Brooks

CORTLAND — If you were to ask Fillmore Lady Eagles head coach Jon Beardsley to describe a season filled with some of the most amazing moments the program has had the opportunity to experience over the course of three months, out of the thousands of words you could look up in your ordinary dictionary, a simple three-letter reply came to mind.

Joy.

The joy of sharing bus rides to and from games, the joy of the Lady Eagles finding their winning way all season long, the joy of producing countless goals, and perhaps the most important detail of them all — the joy of being around each other. Beardsley has witnessed it all, and as a result, his team has gone farther than any other team he has taken before, in recent memory.

To the Class D State Final Four. The grandest stage of them all.

Regardless of the results over the weekend, it is a thought that lingered with a great deal of sadness. A thought that Beardsley hoped would never come.

“It’s our favorite thing to do. I was thinking this morning that if we were to win two days straight, it’s going to be sad that we were going to be done playing soccer this weekend,” he recalled. “It’s just the fact of being together, we love and enjoy being together. When you spend three months out of the year and it’s something that everyone still wants to do, you know you’re pretty fortunate. It’s joy and appreciation, and it’s something we never want for it to be over.”

The one week away from action came to an end Saturday night when the Lady Eagles took the field in Cortland as the Far West representatives, and one of four Class D teams left standing in the Empire State. In their way was Mount Academy from Section IX down near the Big Apple, coming into the Semifinal bout standing at 17-1-1 overall. Fillmore at 21-0.

For the first time this season in a true exemplary battle of efforts, the Lady Eagles came face to face with their match. And although the night carried on as perhaps a one-sided affair for the most part, a rare instance for the Section V Champions, one thing was for certain — the Lady Eagles never, ever quit.

With the clock winding down on their season, Fillmore put together their strongest wave of soccer in the last 15 minutes. From within, some hope and a fever pitch from the Lady Eagles part of the grandstands when they erased a long-lasting shutout on the scoreboard by cutting the deficit in half.

You could say that the heat has now been turned up.

With 7:31 left in the game, the Lady Eagles gave every last bit of energy, fuel, electricity, and all sorts of reliable power sources to come back and force more time on the clock. At one point during the stretch, a near mirror image of Zoe Beardsley’s eventual game-winner at Caledonia-Mumford that helped send the Lady Eagles to the State Tournament, this one in hopes of tying the game.

But the power that Fillmore would build, became overloaded. And then it went out.

Despite the incredible rally from behind by the Lady Eagles, their pressure against Mount Academy was nearly enough to turn the tide down the homestretch, as the Section IX representatives did some bending of their own, but they did not break when the final minutes ticked down, ultimately handing them their first and only loss of the 2021 season just one step away from the State Finals, taking the narrow 2-1 decision in the end.

“They’re a really good team, and they were really hard to read on tape, real hard,” Beardsley said of Mount Academy. “Their speed of play all over the field was one thing that was next level for us. It took us a long while to get used to the next level, and I know it was in the girls to do that. But it punched us right in the gut early on, and things didn’t necessarily go our way. But I wasn’t concerned that we were going to buckle because of it. It was just a matter of having something positive to happen, goals or keeping the ball out of the net.”

From the start, Mount Academy made sure their dominance was set in the first half, as they cranked up the jets on Fillmore (21-1) in the offensive zone, pinning their defense at the same time by using their speed, finesse and tenacity simultaneously to build an overwhelming bundle of pressure against the Lady Eagles.

Multiple chances came from all different angles, a couple of which saw Fillmore netminder Preslee Miller come out of goal to challenge, but the speed of Mount Academy was nearly enough to find the back of the wide open net both times. Fortunately enough for the Lady Eagles, they were able to clear away both opportunities outside of the defensive zone.

Although the defense did a lot of bending, Mount Academy would finally find a way to break it open toward the tail end of the first half when a ball settled to the feet of Hilda Huleatt in the midst of a scrum in front of the net, sending it to the far post past Miller to give the Section IX Champions a 1-0 lead to carry into the break.

The momentum was in Mount Academy’s favor, and would remain there when the second half began. Not even a minute after the first kick by Fillmore, the ball was intercepted by Mount Academy near midfield and carried into the Lady Eagles zone, setting up what was a phenomenal cross in front from the far side to the near where Tamra Ben-Eliezer awaited, knocking the chance into the net with her body to extend their lead to a pair.

It was a two-goal lead that would remain for the majority of the second half, but toward the tail end, a fuse was lit. The Lady Eagles gave it one last push.

They would soon take over much of the possession when the game wound down to the final 15 minutes left on the clock. Every minute that passed by, counted. With 7:31 left to go, the long-standing deficit was soon cut in half by Sophia Templeton, who received the feed from Grace Russell up top after fighting her way through the Mount Academy defense to send off the pass, which was knocked home far side.

All of a sudden, a brand new game formed.

One final chance came about for the Lady Eagles to try and tie the game at two to force extra time, and it would come on a near identical image on the field last week at Caledonia-Mumford with the ball lined up at the 20-yardline for a direct kick by Zoe Beardsley with under four minutes left to play.

The kick had enough air, enough velocity, just like the kick that sealed Fillmore’s fate in the State Qualifier, but this time, a pair of mitts from the Mount Academy goalkeeper reached up just high enough in the air to deflect the chance away to set up a corner kick, which was ultimately cleared out of the defensive zone for the remainder of the game, as the Lady Eagles and their season officially came to a close in the Final Four.

It was an effort at the end of the game Beardsley was more than proud of.

“Our best soccer came in the last 10-15 minutes. I thought Zoe was going to perhaps hit a rewriting of the program’s biggest goal with that direct kick, but their keeper came up with a phenomenal save,” he said. “We all thought it was going to go in, but she came away huge. The girls were tired, but their effort in those last minutes spoke volumes. They didn’t quit, and you could see the energy in them that they were going to go down without a fight. I told them coming in that no matter when our last game is, whether we win it all or not, to make sure they gave everything they got. They did that. Mount Academy is the real deal. We don’t like to lose, and I won’t say we like losing, but we know we lost to an even better team such as them.”

Alas, what was an incredible 2021 season for the Lady Eagles of Fillmore, the best in recent memory, saw its book reach its final page, as they finished dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s with an overall record of 21-1, suffering their first loss of the season as one of the State’s final four teams left standing in Class D. The program will go home with their seventh straight Allegany County Division I title, their second Class D1 title in three years, and a long-awaited Far West Regional Championship under their belts.

Not too shabby all in three month’s time.

“They’re a smart group, and they got the moment. They understand what they’ve done not only for themselves, but for the community as well,” Beardsley said. “Hopefully we have made everyone proud, and that’s one thing the kids really care about. They care about what people think, and that’s not always normal. The kids are thoughtful about what the coach thinks, what their teammates thing, what their parents think, what the town thinks. When you hear the kids talking that way, you know you have it pretty good as a coach, and as a school when you have kids in general like that.”

Perhaps the toughest blow of the night — Beardsley has coached his final game with six of his Seniors, all of which helped create carbon footprints for the younger generation of Lady Eagles to follow, including Lizzy Nugent, Kaleigh Kinnicutt and Emily Krzeminski.

“Obviously, we have a very talented program with some younger girls that have amazing talent. But I will always go back to our Seniors and how much dictation they can determine with how things are going to go in the year,” he said. “From the Lizzy Nugents, to the Kaleigh Kinnicutts, to the Emily Krzeminskis, to the Sophias and the Zoes, all six of them have found ways to make a difference, each and every day. From the kids that weren’t getting much playing time, to the stars on this team. They all showed the younger kids how much they can be an impactful player, regardless if you’re the number 22 player or the number one player.”

His three remaining Seniors he will lose in June? They share a more personal connection to him. Standing alongside his daughter and Senior, Zoe, who he shared a long embrace with after the game, Beardsley held back tears describing his lengthy experience along the sidelines with her, Torann Wolfer and Sophia Templeton — the three biggest cornerstones to Fillmore’s success story over the years.

“I’ve spent a long time with a few of the Seniors in particular. With Torann, Sophia and this one here (Zoe). They’re all good friends, which is awesome. The three of them have impacted this program over the years with their own sparkling personality, and it’s brought something different to this team. Aside from Torann and Sophia, I haven’t spent this much time on the sideline with anyone as much as I’ve spent it with my daughter. I could not have asked for a more better kid to do it with, and share this experience with all season.”

Chris Brooks
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