More than half the regular season had passed before the Fayetteville-Manlius field hockey team had its first encounter with Baldwinsville.
It came last Monday night, on the new Field Turf at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, nearly 11 months after the Hornets had beaten the Bees in penalty strokes to secure the Section III Class A championship.
This time around, the game reflected just how much things had changed between the two sides. B’ville, 9-0 going into the game, made it 10 in a row with an emphatic effort where its attack overwhelmed F-M’s defenses and led to the visitors taking a 7-0 defeat.
F-M found itself under assault from the outset, the Bees taking more than 30 shots. And though Hornets goalie Catherine Barr did make 27 saves, she could not prevent B’ville from converting on a fairly regular basis. Shylea Dukat’s three goals gave her a hat trick, while Amanda Strenk had a goal and two assists. Mackenzie Wodka scored twice.
Things turned around a bit for the Hornets two nights later, at Auburn, where it beat the Maroons 1-0, but even this game was scoreless until the second half, when Susan Bansbach netted an unassisted goal that helped F-M pull it out.
Then, on Friday night, the Hornets met defending sectional Class B champion Camden and got an even better victory, holding off the Blue Devils 3-2 as Sophie Craig scored twice, with Bansbach notching the other goal. Kathryn Colone added an assist.
East Syracuse Minoa had three games this week, starting with last Monday’s visit to Cortland, where it shook off recent disappointments and put away the Purple Tigers in a 1-0 shutout to rise back above the .500 mark (5-4).
Emma Schafer earned a first-half goal, little imagining that it would hold up the rest of the night, the Spartans’ defense recording its third shutout of the season, two of them against Cortland, whom it had topped 3-0 three weeks earlier.
Then ESM returned to the same area Wednesday night to face Homer, a team it beat 3-2 on Aug. 30, Here, the Spartans doubled its production and won by a more comfortable 6-3 margin, but it wasn’t easy at the outset.
Homer pushed ESM to a 2-2 halftime tie, but the Spartans went in front for good early in the second half and then got clear. Schaefer and Sophie Zacharek both notched two goals, with Emily Hunter and Samantha Wysocki also finding the net. Lindsey Russell earned a career-best three assists.
To cap off this week, ESM tested itself Saturday against visiting Whitesboro, and took a close 2-1 defeat to the Warriors, all of the goals coming in the second half.
Wysocki scored for the Spartans, but Whitesboro’s Claire Wiley earned assists on both of Whitesboro’s tallies, from Madeline Krecidio and Morgan Leibus, and despite a lot of ESM chances, it couldn’t get anything more past Jessica Mahardy, whose 10 saves were twice the total of Cory Palmer’s five.
Now with a 6-5 record, the Spartans would visit Cazenovia on Monday before taking its own shot at Baldwinsville on Wednesday and facing Liverpool on Friday night. F-M, at 7-4 following the wins over Auburn and Camden, would host Liverpool Monday night and go to Cicero-North Syracuse on Thursday.
