When the 2014-15 season ended, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls basketball team was at a low point, having not accumulated enough wins to even make the Section III Class AA playoffs and looking far up at the likes of Cicero-North Syracuse.
But when the 2015-16 version of the Hornets ventured to C-NS last Friday night, it did so having engineered an astonishing turnaround, something that even a defeat to the heavily favored Northstars could not dampen.
Going into the game, F-M was 9-1, and situated at no. 13 in the state AA rankings, just eight spots behind C-NS. And it was coming off one of its best wins of the season, a 52-41 home victory over state no. 15-ranked Baldwinsville where the Hornets’ airtight defense was complemented by an offensive growing more diverse and difficult to contain.
B’ville carried its own 8-2 mark into the game, but that did not faze the young Hornets, who unleashed its defense on B’ville, especially in the paint, where junior Lizzie Hall and eighth-grader Alexis Gray was charged with trying to contain the Bees’ star forward, Riley Carlucci.
For the most part, it worked. Carlucci did pick up 12 rebounds, but she converted just one field goal and had five points overall. What’s more, her teammates, given open looks with all the attention on Carlucci, could not make them in a first half where the game was close and low-scoring.
F-M only led by three, 18-15, at the break, but started to find more of a cushion as the pace picked up in the second half, And every time B’ville tried to get closer, the Hornets had an answer, relying on a well-balanced attack.
Inside, Hall (12 points, 10 rebounds) and Gray (10 points, six rebounds, six blocks) complemented the guard duo of Patterson-Ricks, who amassed 11 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, and Carly Assimon, who got seven points, eight assists and five rebounds. On B’ville’s side, Emily Pascale and Kaylee Lammers did get 13 points and five rebounds apiece, with Pascale adding five steals.
All of this led to the trip to C-NS, and it proved quite instructional as the Northstars, at the start of each half, jumped all over F-M and didn’t let up until it had handed the Hornets a 77-34 defeat.
Fully aware of how well the Hornets were playing, C-NS attacked from the outset, scoring the game’s first 18 points and blanking F-M for nearly six minutes. The senior quartet of McKayla Roberts, Samantha Tortora, Beth Bonin and Mary Kate Bonnani all hit 3-pointers in that early run.
Yet when the game went to halftime, the Northstars were unhappy. F-M had somehow weathered this bad start and, down 23-4, had fought back in the second quarter with an 11-5 run.
Though C-NS led, 33-15, at halftime, it wasn’t satisfied, and the Northstars responded in kind, blitzing through the third quarter 29-5 while connecting on four more 3-pointers.
Harris led F-M with just seven points as both Hall and Patterson-Ricks struggled with foul trouble and managed just one field goal between them. Eight different C-NS players converted 13 times beyond the arc, and even forward Amani Free got into the act with a 3-pointer as she recorded 14 points, matching the totals of Roberts and Bonin.
Three more games, in a four-day span await the 9-2 Hornets this week as it would face Auburn and Rome Free Academy on back-to-back nights before traveling to Nottingham on Friday.
