SEE MORE PHOTOS BY DENNIS JOYCE HERE
By TIM IRVING
Pittsford senior All-American Ella Wilmot couldn’t tell you what happened in the girls Class A semifinals against Fairport.
“I was talking to the Fairport players and we were like, we’re playing such an even game right now, this is going to go on all night.”
Wilmot’s seventh goal took an odd bounce and went into the net as the horn sounded to end the third overtime as the second seeded Panthers squeaked by the Red Raiders, 10-9.
Wilmot, who will play at Cornell next year, scored the first three goals for Pittsford and set up another for Jessica Robinson and the Panthers led 4-2,
But the Raiders, who has a depleted bench due to injuries, kept pace as Lily Kondas took a feed from Morgan Wrobbel to cut it to 4-3 and with 10 seconds left in the half, Ella Peers tied the game at 4.
Fairport came out hot in the second half, grabbing a 7-5 lead on Katie Mallaber’s finish.
“We made a defensive adjustment that blew up in our face, so we called a time out to turn that off,” Panthers coach Donovan Lopez said.
Wilmot and Robinson scored goals to even it up with eight minutes left.
The Red Raiders draw specialist, Ellie Miller, dominated at the “x” and Mallaber scored off the ensuing face-off to give Fairport the lead again.
With four minutes left, Wilmot scored on an 8m goal off a penalty on Raiders’ goalie Jaelyne Twomey, a literal open net, for her sixth of the game.
Robinson gave the Panthers the lead with under two minutes to play.
But Miller won the draw again and Fairport got set up.
Wrobbel fed Kondas, who used her height advantage to tie the game at 9-9 with 43 seconds to play.
“They have fewer subs than we do and they played an extremely hard and tough game, on the draw they were insane,” Wilmot said afterwards.
Through two overtimes, both defenses tightened up but with only three minutes per extra period, neither got much going.
With four seconds left in the third overtime, Robinson gave the ball to Wilmot, who got off an awkward shot. Twomey got a piece of the ball with her crosse but it went over the line. The officials agreed that the shot had beaten the buzzer and Pittsford advanced for the third straight season with Wilmot and Robinson accounting for all ten goals.
“If anyone wondered if Ella’s an All-American, they saw it today. She put the team on her back and Jess is one of the best feeders in Section V,” Lopez said.
The Panthers and Royal Comets play for the second time this season May 31st, Pittsford won the first game 7-6.
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