As a recovery point from its Jan. 16 loss to Cicero-North Syracuse, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls basketball team still had the capability to handle a high-caliber opponents, and would get two chances to move up the ladder.
And the Hornets grabbed both of them, none more important than last Friday night’s 63-54 victory at home over defending Section III Class AA champion Corcoran.
With the win, F-M broke up Corcoran’s 11-game win streak and tied the Cougars for first in the CNY Counties League American division.
It helped, no doubt, that the Cougars were without its top player, Irene Hudson, who averages more than 15 points and 10 rebounds a game. Hudson was ailing and did not make the trip to F-M, a huge break — and the Hornets would take full advantage.
Though trailing 13-11 after one period, F-M stayed cool — then proceeded to dominate the second quarter. With Torie Lee getting eight of her 14 points in this frame and Katie Sager hitting a pair of 3-pointers, the Hornets tore through Corcoran’s normally strong defenses in a 19-3 outburst, going to halftime with a 30-16 advantage.
In a frantically paced second half, Corcoran would eat into F-M’s lead, only to be answered on a regular basis as the Hornets stayed out in front to earn its most important win of the season to date.
With Corcoran trying to smother Lee and Hudson not around to dominate in the paint, forward Emily Trapani took over in the paint, working her way to a game-high 22 points. Liz Towne offered help, too, earning nine points as Sager finished with eight points and Morgan Axenfeld got seven points.
The Cougars did have a balanced attack where five players got eight or more points, led by Brittini Ray’s 11, but none of them could step up for the kind of production Hudson usually provides.
With the win over Corcoran, the Hornets moved to 11-3 on the season, entering back-to-back home games against Oswego and Nazareth (Section V) that start on Thursday night.
