With a 19-point second-half advantage whittled down to four in Tuesday night’s game against visiting Baldwinsville, the Fayetteville-Manlius boys basketball team faced the very real possibility that it would drop back-to-back home games for the first time in recent memory.
But the Hornets, aided by the guard tandem of Jake Wittig and Nick Quilty-Koval, recovered in time to reclaim control in the fourth quarter and beat the Bees 68-61.
All of it was part of F-M’s annual “Pink Out” doubleheader, with most of the student section donning pink T-shirts and all proceeds from the games going to the More Than A Game Foundation that benefits Golisano Children’s Hospital.
At first, the home fans had plenty of reason to cheer. Mixing in a zone defense with its trademark 1-3-1, the Hornets forced B’ville into lots of early mistakes, and seemed to capitalize on every one of them, bolting out to an 18-5 lead.
Quilty-Koval poured in four 3-pointers and 14 points overall in the first half, with Wittig adding 12 points, and when David Stegemann converted on a basket in the opening seconds of the third quarter, F-M’s advantage had swelled to 41-22.
But led by Tim Marshall, who had 13 of his 27 points in the third quarter, the Bees roared back, going on a 13-0 run to climb back into the picture. Newly energized, B’ville didn’t let up until it had cut the Hornets lead to 46-42 with one period left.
Then F-M’s guards took over again. Held without a point in that third period, Quilty-Koval buried a 3-pointer early in the final period as he and Wittig accounted for all of the points in a 12-2 run, capped by Quilty-Koval’s sixth 3-pointer of the night.
Despite battling to the end, B’ville could not recover from a surge, in part because it never found a consistent scoring threat to complement Marshall, though Devyn McLeod did produce most of his 12 points in the second half.
All told, Wittig had 26 points, dished out 11 assists, made six steals and earned six rebounds, with Quilty-Koval contributing 22 points. Nick Perry added eight points and four rebounds.
In the opener of the twin bill, the F-M girls team lost, 42-35, to Liverpool, in a game the Hornets led most of the way before the Warriors took over in the fourth quarter, with Jenna Wike scoring nine of her 16 points in that final frame.
F-M went without a field goal for more than nine minutes in the stretch, during which time Liverpool went on a 16-3 run. D’Jhai Patterson-Ricks finished with 15 points to lead the Hornets before fouling out.
That game carried extra meaning for Liverpool because it came one day after the mother of Warriors junior guard Lexi Tulowecki passed away. Tulowecki was in uniform and entered the game in the final minute, and Liverpool donated $250 to the event, dedicating the win to Tulowecki and her mother’s memory.
