Another week, and another time where the Jamesville-DeWitt boys lacrosse team would attempt to knock off a powerful neighbor.
Unsuccessful against CBA on March 28, the Red Rams took aim at Fayetteville-Manlius on Saturday at Liverpool High School — and found the target.
In fact, J-D led most of the way, then used a dominant third quarter to shock the Hornets and produce a 12-7 victory.
Entering the game at 2-0, F-M knew this would be its toughest test of the season, even though J-D was just coming off a hard-fought overtime win over Cortland.
Sure enough, the first half was tight. The Rams displayed its intentions early, racing to a 3-1 advantage, and even though it cooled off a bit, J-D still went to the break owning a 5-3 lead.
All the suspense ended in the third period. Dominating the draws and sending waves of attackers at the Hornets’ net, the Rams reeled off six unanswered goals, its most impressive stretch of the young season, to make it 11-3 and put it out of F-M’s reach.
What’s more, the Hornets couldn’t key on any single player. John Clark led J-D’s push, with three goals and two assists, but Mike Edwards also notched a hat trick and Jim Marshall scored twice.
Mac Keefus backed up his single goal with a team-best three assists. Nick Marshall and Christian Daly each got one goal and one assist, while Mike Centra managed a goal and George Kingma earned two assists.
F-M could not get much on the board, as Anthony Krizman and Ethan Gilbert got two goals apiece. Matt Taylor, Blair Hanson and Mike Poppleton also scored, but more often the Hornets got thwarted as J-D goalie Zack Paz had 12 saves, one more than F-M counterpart Eric Shuttenburg.
Prior to their meeting, J-D and F-M were both busy, each side carefully building some win streaks.
Twice, the Rams were on the road. The easy part came first, as J-D ventured to Homer last Tuesday night and blasted the Trojans 15-3.
By the end of the first quarter, the Red Rams were already in front 5-0, and it continued to pull further away, logging all of its goals in the first three quarters.
Daly found the net five times, adding an assist. Jeff Vetter had four goals, while Jim Marshall earned two goals and three assists. Centra and Rob Cooper got single tallies, with John Clark adding two assists.
J-D faced a much harder game at Cortland on Thursday. In fact, it had to go to overtime to pull out a 7-6 win over the Purple Tigers.
On a muddy field in cold conditions, Cortland went up early and had a modest 4-3 lead at halftime, but the Red Rams caught up by the end of the third quarter.
From there, it remained tense, and at 6-6, the game required overtime. It took 3:30 of OT before Marshall, held scoreless up to that point, ripped a shot past Cortland goalie Zach Zayac for the game-winner. Prior to that, Zayac had 18 saves.
For his part, Paz got 15 saves in his own splendid effort, and J-D’s defense held Cortland star Joel White without a point.
Daly carried the Rams through regulation, earning two goals and two assists, while Clark got two goals and one assist and Edwards also found the net twice. Centra, Jared Knowles and Kingma earned assists. By winning, J-D kept intact its 31-game league win streak.
On this same frigid Thursday, F-M was grinding through its home opener with Oswego, needing its own rally to beat the Buccaneers 7-5.
Each side had their run in the first half. The Hornets raced to a 3-0 lead, only to see Oswego take charge in the second period and go up, 5-4, before the break.
F-M’s defense would tighten, though, not allowing another goal the rest of the way as the Hornets produced enough to get back in front. Shuttenburg was a big difference in this match, earning 18 saves.
Anthony Krizman gained two goals and one assist, with Taylor adding a goal and two assists. Hanson, Greg Gilroy, Poppleton and Justin DePalma also took turns scoring, as Gilroy and Matt Kutzer contributed assists.
As the Hornets face road games at Central Square, Henninger and Nottingham this week, J-D will see two sectional champions in three days, confronting New Hartford in a rematch of last year’s Class A final (won by the Spartans) before a Saturday showdown with West Genesee in Camillus.
