Sam Edwards still looks back at photos to relive the emotions of what his boys soccer team accomplished.
It was the most successful postseason in Ellicottville boys soccer history, a program that has done plenty of winning in Section 6 Class D over the last decade or so.
But for three straight years, it was the same shade of Fillmore green standing in Ellicottville’s way.
This year, with many of those players, Edwards included, playing in the Far West Regional against the same opponent a third time, the Eagles did something about it.
Ellicottville won the Far West Regional for the first time in the school’s boys soccer history, knocking off the defending state champions from Fillmore to do so.
After helping lead Ellicottville to its first-ever state semifinal trip, Edwards won the Big 30 Boys Soccer Co-Player of the Year award, an honor he shared with Bradford (Pa.) senior Mitchell Strauss.
A few weeks after his season finally ended in a 2-1 loss to Poland at the NYSPHSAA Class D semifinal in Goshen, Edwards felt he was able to truly appreciate what his team accomplished this year.
“It’s really cool,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of little things from the season that I didn’t really value as much and now that it’s over, I look back and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s really cool.’ Like, less of the awards. I could have scored a lot less goals and still been as happy just because of the company I had.
“Looking back, some of our just random bus rides to away games are my favorite memories. Even over big moments, like what’s considered important. So there’s a lot of little things like that, that I look back and I’m like, ‘Wow, that was really cool.’”
This year brought Edwards’ second CCAA East Co-MVP honor and his second Buffalo News Small School All-Western New York selection. This year, he was one of just three repeat Big 30 All-Stars, along with Strauss and Bolivar-Richburg’s Reiss Gaines.
Now the Houghton University-bound senior can add Big 30 Player of the Year, officially named the Rich Sullivan Award, to that list of accolades.
Edwards — the engine behind Ellicottville’s offense with 26 goals and 19 assists — played a big part in most of the Eagles’ wins. So too did one of his fellow Big 30 All-Stars, Owen Doherty, who actually led the Eagles with a school-record goal total at 32 (along with eight assists).
Edwards credited both of his teammates who joined him as Big 30 selections, Doherty and senior defender William Benatovich.
“Owen and I are really close, on the field especially,” Edwards said. “We play the attacking mid and the striker, so we play off each other so much, so obviously it’s super important, especially this year. In the past, it was just me scoring, which got tricky because then we’d go to play a better team and if I was marked, it was like, I’m done for. So having someone else that could score, then they have to mark two of us. That makes it 10 times stronger of a team (because) someone else can score.
“Then Will is just our leader in the back. He’s our backbone and keeps the whole team together, very vocal, a super important player.”
Ellicottville had few contributing seniors each of the last two seasons, in 2021 and 2022, which put more pressure on Edwards’ class and the one below it to mature at the varsity level quickly. That was evident his sophomore year when they lost the regional to Fillmore, 9-0. But in 2022, it was only a 2-0 loss to Fillmore in the same round. As a junior, Edwards broke out with 24 goals and 14 assists to lead the Eagles to the second of three straight sectional titles
“This year was finally the first year where we had a group of strong upperclassmen,” said Edwards, a third-year captain. “That’s what I’d say changed. As a group we came up and were like, ‘alright, one of these years we’re going to win it. We’re going to be strong this year.’”
As seniors, they considered that regional game their unfinished business. Edwards said they even were happy to see it would be another rematch after Fillmore defeated Naples for the Section 5 title.
“We were happy,” he said. “We were so happy that they beat Naples because we wanted a shot at them so bad. It wouldn’t have meant the same to us. You see the pictures from the game and stuff, just so many tears, so much emotion. Because it was like, ‘we’re going to beat Fillmore in that game.’ That was the goal and we did it too.”
The season ended a game later, which still stings.
“It’s unlucky the way the Poland game went, unlucky (to end) our state run,” Edwards noted. “We just didn’t play very well.
“But yeah, it’s super special,” he concluded of the historic season.
