Getting off to its best start in a long while, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls basketball team found itself 4-0 following a pair of wins against city foes, setting up a key early-season clash with West Genesee on Tuesday night.
The Hornets started its most recent week of action by hosting Nottingham last Tuesday night and doing just enough to gain a 41-33 victory over the Bulldogs,
Much of the game was played on even terms, with one notable exception. F-M held Nottingham in check during the second quarter, outscoring them 12-3 to gain a 22-15 halftime lead, which it mostly preserved through strong, steady defense.
On the other end, the Hornets again leaned on guard D’Jhai Patterson-Ricks, who scored 22 points, more than half her team’s output, and added four rebounds, three assists and three steals. Alexis Gray helped out with six points and six rebounds, while Elizabeth Hall and Eliza Mento each got five points and Hall matched Gray’s six-rebound effort.
Now the Hornets visited the newly-christened Jim Marsh Court to face Corcoran on Friday night, and this proved even more lopsided as F-M upped its point total a bit, improved on defense a bit more and handled the Cougars 45-26.
Right away, F-M showed how tough it could be on one end of the court, holding Corcoran to two points in the first quarter. Even though the Hornets weren’t as stingy the rest of the way, it never let the Cougars get closer, either.
A lot of that had to do with Patterson-Ricks, who again led with 16 points. Yet here F-M showed a little more variety as each of the 10 players that saw action got at least one point, with Gray earning six points as Reilly Baker and Carly Assimon each gained five points.
While all this was going on, F-M’s boys basketball team won its first three games before getting tripped up.
Having handled Auburn and East Syracuse Minoa the week before the Hornets made it three wins in a row last Tuesday night, at Nottingham, where it proved that it could survive an off night from its offense by excelling on the other end of the floor to beat the Bulldogs 44-34.
Nottingham had seen its star players depart, including Malik Zachery, who transferred to a prep school, but then returned to the area and now is at West Genesee. So the Bulldogs were still in search of someone to count on, which didn’t mean too much during a 21-21 first half, but meant plenty in the third quarter, when F-M’s 1-3-1 defense took a toll on Nottingham and limited the hosts to just three points.
F-M didn’t light it up too much, but still took a 36-24 lead to the final period and held on behind nine points apiece from Jawaan Crouch and Fernando Johnson, while Tim Zapisek earned seven points and eight rebounds.
Tyler Papa added six points as David Stegemann worked well inside, earning six rebounds, plus five steals and three assists. Nick Goodfellow also had six points. Shawndai Hudgens paced Nottingham with nine points, with Mohammed Abdi adding seven points.
Returning to its new home gym on Friday night, F-M met another city foe, Corcoran, who unlike Nottingham did have a go-to-guy in Marquis Gilbert – and Gilbert proceeded to rock the Hornets, especially in the game’s middle stages, as the Cougars prevailed by a 65-47 margin.
Even though F-M was up 16-13 after one period, Gilbert wasn’t fazed by it. Having passed 1,000 career points earlier in the week in a loss to West Genesee, Gilbert added to that total in a big way, combining with a tough Corcoran defense as the visitors nearly doubled up the Hornets, 39-20, over the course of the second and third periods.
Not letting up, Gilbert finished with 38 points, including five successful 3-pointers and nine free throws. By contrast, F-M’s top scorer, Johnson, had just 12 points, plus five rebounds as Crouch got 10 points and four rebounds. No other F-M player had more than Isaac Petroulis-Lessig’s total of five points.
Now F-M has to go to Camillus Tuesday night and face 4-0 West Genesee, starting a daunting stretch that includes Friday’s trip to defending Section III Class AA champion Henninger and a Dec. 22 meeting with Liverpool.