After some serious struggles a season ago, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls basketball team was attempting to climb back into relevance, and got off to quite a good start in that quest.
In its season opener, the Hornets visited Auburn last Monday night and relied on its defense to take out the Maroons in a 51-23 decision.
Pressuring from the outset, F-M held Auburn to two points in the first quarter. It stayed lopsided for the rest of the half, too, with the Hornets building a 28-7 margin, and eventually getting the lead to 42-15 by the time they reached the fourth quarter.
Returning guard D’Jhai Patterson-Ricks nearly matched Auburn all by herself, amassing 22 points to go with six steals, three rebounds and three assists. Carly Assimon had eight points, four rebounds and three assists.
Following that, the Hornets met East Syracuse Minoa in its new home gym on Thursday night, and took off in a big way, pulling away to beat the Spartans by a score of 55-31.
The game broke open in the second quarter, when F-M outscored ESM 18-7. it kept pulling further away from there, led again by Patterson-Ricks, who poured in 17 points and added four rebounds and five assists.
Nine different F-M players earned at least one field goals, with Assimon and Alexis Gray offering the most help to Patterson-Ricks, earning nine points apiece. Elizabeth Hall amassed eight rebounds, four blocks and three steals as Assimon got six rebounds, four assists and three steals. ESM’s Brigid McGinley had 15 points, nearly half her team’s output.
While that was going on, Bishop Grimes took a hit on its home court against a Class A foe, falling in overtime to Central Square by a score of 59-56.
And this happened despite a second-half comeback by the Cobras, who trailed 34-22 at the break after the Redhawks outscore them 19-9 in the second period. Most of that deficit was made up in the third quarter, and though Grimes did get it to a four-minute OT, Central Square got 11 points in those four minutes to the Cobras’ eight.
Azariah Wade led both sides with 22 points, while Brianna Squier and Marissa Hartley had 12 points apiece. Katy McInerney added six points. The Redhawks had four players – Breanna Ransom (13 points), Kalie Schumaker (12 points), Lizzy Straub and Caitlin Benzer (11 points each) – score in double figures.
Back on Monday, ESM had lost, 52-34, to Corcoran, a team starting out after an emotional off-season where it learned that Jim Marsh, the winner of more games than any other Section III girls basketball coach, had liver cancer and had to step away from coaching.
To honor Marsh, Section III teams got together for “Marsh Madness”, with F-M and Bishop Grimes serving as host venues for the 32-team, day-long tournament that culminated in a final four at Corcoran where the court was dedicated in Marsh’s honor in front of more than 50 of his former players. At least $22,000 was raised to help pay for Marsh’s treatments.
With Chris Lydon stepping in to coach for Marsh, Corcoran opened its season against ESM and held the visitors to four points in the first quarter. Fighting back, the Spartans closed within single digits, 38-29, by the fourth quarter, only to see the Cougars pull away as Jasmine Lightburn (15 points, five rebounds, three assists) led the way.
No ESM player scored in double figures, though Taylor Cassella got close with nine points. Alexis Filmer had seven points, while Holly Carr, Loren Clifford and Athena Thomason had five points apiece.
