By PAUL GOTHAM
That the Gates-Chili boys soccer team won more games this regular season than they had in the past three combined was accomplishment enough. To move on in the sectionals for the first time in five years put an exclamation point on the effort.
Junior goalkeeper Justin Bailey turned away a pair of attempts including the clincher as Gates-Chili defeated the Penfield Patriots on penalty kicks (4-3) in Section V Class AA first round action, Tuesday.
“If you want to see a Cinderella story, these are the guys,” first-year G-C coach Jim Vanderhoof said. “Hadn’t won [this many games] in three years. Now they come out and win seven this year.
“They work hard every day in practice, and they come out here and pays it off at the end of the year. This is the feeling that they work hard for and they train for. It’s great.”
With the Gates bench calling from the sideline for him to ‘pick a side,’ Bailey stopped the last two penalty kick attempts he faced.
“I tune everyone out, and I try to focus on what I know and what I can do to just keep the ball out and don’t let that past me,” Bailey explained. “It’s only a split-second decision whichever way you go – left or right. At that moment when he was a foot away from the ball, it just clicked: go right. It seemed like the angle of the ball, maybe it would have gone right. Maybe it would have been left. I trusted that split-second decision to go right, and that’s what I did.”
The heroics almost didn’t happen.
Penfield had a pair of chances at the end of regulation that Bailey stopped, and the Patriots Tyler Mounnarat sent a blast just over the cross bar in the first overtime period.
“Justin has been incredible all year,” Vanderhoof said of his keeper. “He really has. The guys lean on him, and he steps up big time. We need him. The guy had over 160 saves this year and played goal every single game but one for us.”
Gates won two previous meetings with Penfield during the regular season, 1-0/3-2.
“It’s almost impossible to beat a team three times,” Vanderhoof stated. “It took effort from every single guy on the bench, every guy who I pulled up from JV for sectionals, every guy who was out there. We needed every single bit of energy they had to pull it off. That was a battle.”
Kristian Annibali, Antonio Buonomo, Adoniadis Savidis and Giordano Alberto converted penalty kicks for Gates.
Oleg Savka, Ryan Lajoie and Jackson Vogt connected for Penfield.
With the wind gusting throughout the contest, it seemed destined the conditions would affect the outcome. But if there was any impact it didn’t show up in the score as the teams finished regulation 0-0.
“Wind was a big factor today,” Vanderhoof noted. “First half we were all over them with the wind. Second half they’re all over us with the wind. It definitely was the whole game, but the guys worked hard to pull it off.”
G-C moves on to play top-seeded McQuaid (16-0-0). The Jesuit Knights are ranked No. 1 NYS Class AA and No. 2 in the USA Today poll.
“That’s going to be a really tough game,” Bailey said. “I believe our team can do well against them.”
The Spartans last won a sectional game in 2012 when they beat Webster Thomas, 3-2 in the opening round of Class AA1.
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