Through an impressive home effort, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls basketball team rolled past Central Square 59-30 on Friday night, improving to 11-1 on the season.
At the same time, the boys Hornets found itself it a major battle at Central Square, but still did enough to get past the Red hawks 41-33.
All through the first half, the F-M girls toyed with Central Square, playing superb defense on one end and converting often on the other end, leading to a 32-14 edge.
As it pulled further away in the late going, the Hornets saw Emily Trapani earn 21 points and get sufficient support, too. Ali Pliszka had eight points, while Alexis Rios and Kiley Schoemaker each got seven points and Charlotte Beers finished with six points.
F-M’s boys traveled north with a 9-3 record, yet could not impose its pace or its will on a 3-9 Central Square team determined to stage an upset.
In fact, the Hornets trailed, 9-7, through one period, and even when it stepped up and took a 21-18 halftime lead, it could not pull clear as the two sides combined for six points in an ugly third quarter.
Somehow, F-M overcame all this, plus a bad night from Brian Zapisek as he managed a season-low five points. Jack Giles stepped up with 12 points, while Andrew Murphy got eight points and Mike O’Neil got six points. Central Square’s T.J. Perkins led both sides with 13 points.
Both of F-M’s teams will be favored again next Friday when they take on West Genesee.