WEEDSPORT - Weedsport field hockey coach Theresa Leonardi thought that a county tournament would be fun because many other sports in the area have one.

She was right, and the inaugural Cayuga County Field Hockey tournament treated fans to a thrilling championship game between the host Warriors and Moravia, with Weedsport pulling out a 3-1 win despite non-stop Moravia pressure.

Tournament MVP Allison Beardsley scored with just over a minute left in regulation to give the Warriors an insurance goal. Moravia coach Doug Langtry had pulled all but one defender to try to score on Weedsport goalie Kaitlin Hammersley, who had 11 stops. Beardsley broke away and found the back of the net with 1:01 left.

“Our goalie was outstanding today,” Leonardi said. “Moravia is a very skilled team - they really pounded the goal. Fortunately for us our goalie and the rest of the defense were able to stop them.”

The Blue Devils controlled the ball for most of the first half and a good portion of the second, but could never quite break through.

Moravia tallied 14 shots to Weedsport's six.

“When they had the ball they did a good job of finding the goal,” Langtry said. “They found their shots.”

With the Blue Devils controlling the tempo, it was up to the Warriors to break things up.

“They stopped every pass that we had,” Langtry said.

Weedsport struck first, as Katie Loperfido scored the first of her two goals at the 24:10 mark. Moravia responded with four shots, and Emily Lockett finally broke through with 13:12 left in the first half.

Though the Blue Devils continued to pelt Hammersley, Loperfido found the net again at the 5:10 mark on a pass from Taylor Roe. Moravia had a number of opportunities in the second half, but Beardsley's late goal accounted for the remainder of the scoring.

Though it's still early, the future bright for both teams, and the tournament.

Play started on Wednesday after teams were randomly seeded for 15-minute scrimmages. After the scrimmages teams were re-seeded with the five and six seeds playing one game for fifth place. Southern Springs defeated Cato-Meridian 4-1 in the fifth-place game.

Weedsport advanced to the championship game by defeating Auburn 6-2, and Moravia defeated Port Byron 4-1.

Leonardi was proud of her team for focusing on the game despite the added work of hosting the tournament, and overall she believed that the tournament was a great way for the teams to get to know each other early on.

“It gives teams and coaches a lot of feedback without ruining their travel budget,” she said.

In the third-place game, Auburn defeated Port Byron 3-2 in a crazy affair. The teams remained tied 2-2 after two 10-minute overtimes and after multiple rounds of penalty strokes. But Auburn's Abbie Reese scored after 17 total penalty strokes. Reese and Ashley Leja provided the two other scores for Auburn while Abby Valentino provided an assist.

For Port Byron, Christine DeSocio and Jessica Walter scored and Brianna Handley had an assist.

While Auburn claimed third place in the tournament, the game goes down as a 2-2 tie in the Section III record books.

All-Tournament Team

Weedsport

Katie Loperfido

Chelsea Paquette

Katie Schlegel

Kaitlin Hammersley

Allison Beardsley *

Moravia

Kelley Lloyd

Emily Lockett

Hannah Mackey

Haley Potter

Auburn

Abbie Reese

Sarah Reese

Jamie Handley

Port Byron

Ashley Leja

Julie Janusz

Southern Springs

Bethany Malenick

Cato-Meridian

Ashley Thomas

* Denotes Most Valuable Player