The well-worn cliché of a season at the crossroads perfectly applied to the Fayetteville-Manlius boys lacrosse team as it hosted Cicero-North Syracuse on Tuesday night.
Mired at 3-5, coming off back-to-back road losses at Auburn and Skaneateles where it had squandered second-half leads, the Hornets could either sink further and risk missing the Section III Class A playoffs, or rise up and prove that it would not easily let go of the crown.
What resulted was nothing less than a full turnaround, F-M putting together, by far, its best arll-around effort of the season against C-NS and pummeling the Northstars 12-5.
It didn’t seem to matter that C-NS held the no. 24 state Class A rankings or that it carried a seven-game win streak into the night. What did matter was that the Northstars may have got caught looking ahead to a Friday showdown with unbeaten West Genesee, and paid dearly for it.
The tone was set by F-M’s defense, led by Jeff Martin, James Farrell, Owen Penoyer and Jacob Okun, who drew inspiration from a pair of point-blank saves goalie Brian Charlamb made early in the game to keep C-NS from getting out in front.
Instead, it was the Hornets blanking the Northstars for most of the first half, getting ahead 3-1 in the opening period, and then getting goals from Erik Badger, Dylan Taylor-Wolford and Mac Fish that extended the margin to 6-1 at halftime.
Just as important was what happened when C-NS’s attack broke its long drought in the third quarter. Three times, the Northstars pulled within three goals, and every time F-M answered, which in turn sparked the defense again as it proceeded to shut out C-NS in the fourth quarter. No one was coming back on the Hornets on this occasion.
Taylor-Wolford finished with three goals and two assists. Fish and Tyler Papa each scored twice, with Donovan Welsh getting two assists to go with his lone goal. Badger added an assist, too, as did Griffin Cicci, while Ryan Cicci, Dan Burnam and David Stegemann chimed in with goals. Charlamb stopped 12 of the 17 shots he faced.
