During the holiday break, the Fayetteville-Manlius ice hockey team would test itself against tough competition at the Cortland/Homer Tournament, and could only manage a third-place finish due to a dramatic opening-round defeat.

Favored in that first game against the hosts from Cortland-Homer last Friday, the Hornets were forced into overtime and, eventually a shoot-out, where it lost to the Golden Eagles after a 3-3 tie.

All game long, F-M and Cortland-Homer mirrored each other, with single goals in the first period and nothing in a second-period stalemate.

Then, led again by Anthony Angello, F-M turned in a stellar third-period performance and scored twice, only to have the Golden Eagles twice find the net, too, leaving it at 3-3.

A five-minute overtime period settled nothing, so it went to the shoot-out, where Cortland-Homer pulled out in front, overcoming the work of Hornets goalie Erik Badger, who made 20 saves.

Overall, Angello scored twice, with Matt McDonough getting a pair of assists. Garrett DuMond had the other goal, with Trevor Chase and Tyler Tracy earning one assist apiece. Casey Dailey, Dan Turck and Victor McCutcheon had Cortland-Homer’s goals.

Now the Hornets got to take out some frustration on Cazenovia (who lost to Frontier 7-4 in the other part of the opening round) in Saturday’s consolation game. It turned out to be a similar high-scoring affair, but F-M got on top this time, beating the Lakers 7-5.

Angello and Chase proved unstoppable in the first two periods. F-M steadily built a 5-2 lead, mostly because Angello and Chase finished off scoring chances, both of them on their way to three-goal hat tricks augmented by earning three assists, too.

To hang on to that margin, F-M turned to Napierala. The Hornets gave up more shots than it took, but Napierala stopped most of them in the first two periods on his way to 41 saves. That helped atone for some late-game struggles, but the Hornets still did enough to win.

CBA/J-D, who was off during the break, went into that rest period on a good note as, in its last game of 2012, it shut out Clinton 5-0 at Onondaga Nation Arena on Dec. 21.

Already with a 1-0 lead, the Brothers got away from the Warriors in the second period, scoring three times while its defense remained difficult to solve.

Peter Dziergas, with two goals, led CBA/J-D’s well-balanced attack. Lucas Relkin, Cole Fowler and Gavin Gray also scored, while Ryan Durkin, Braeden Doust and Grayson Burns each had two assists. The Brothers took 43 shots, while Clinton only managed 15, all of them stopped by Tim Decker.

Just behind New Hartford for the fourth and final Division II playoff spot, CBA/J-D resumes action on Friday, hosting Auburn, just as F-M, one point behind West Genesee in a tight Division I West race, hosts Ontario Bay.