Twice in April, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls lacrosse team has come up with landmark wins on its home turf.

Having already topped West Genesee for the first time in 11 years, the Hornets now turned its attention to last Tuesday’s game against visiting Cicero-North Syracuse, who arrived with a perfect 9-0 record and no. 8 state Class A ranking, exactly where F-M stood in the state Class B poll.

To this point, the Northstars had survived all kinds of close calls in its nine-game win streak, but it didn’t do so here as the Hornets, aided by a timely scoring surge early in the second half, prevailed over C-NS 13-9.

During a low-scoring first half, both sides played solid defense, but F-M did a better job of it, limiting the Northstars’ possessions and claiming a 5-3 lead. It got decided early in the second half, when the Hornets put up four unanswered goals to extend its margin to 9-3, something that the Northstars could not quite overcome.

F-M had a well-balanced attack. Annie Steigerwald, Amanda Cramer and Kiera Shanley each netted three goals, with Steigerwald and Cramer adding assists as Gemma Addonizio got two goals and three assists. Katie Shanley had a goal and three assists. Jane Cote earned the other goal.

For C-NS, Olivia Massena had two goals and one assist, with Jessica Meneilly and Megan Tryniski also scoring twice. Brenna Duffy had two assists as single goals went to Julia Alberici and Olivia Africa. Northstars goalie Julia Gilbert made nine saves.

Yet another big game loomed on Saturday, at Skaneateles, and F-M was unstoppable on offense in the first half, only to get shut down the rest of the way and, in a game that stretched into overtime, fell to the Lakers 14-13.

F-M had the last possession of the second half, but Skaneateles goalie Emily Baldwin made a point-blank stop on Addonizio with seven seconds left, keeping the game tied, 13-13. It was Baldwin’s ninth save of the afternoon.

Down a player due to a yellow card, the Lakers almost had to win the OT draw, and despite game-long struggles in that department against the Hornets’ Sydney DiGralomo, Abby Kuhns took that draw and grabbed it out of the air to earn possession.

And ultimately, Kyla Sears had to do her part, which was show why she was the best player on the field.  Already with five goals on the afternoon, Sears beat F-M netminder Liz Brady for the tying goal with 50 seconds left in regulation mere moments after Brady had made a close-up stop on Sears’ first attempt.

After Kuhns snared the OT draw, the Lakers had more than a minute to kill off, but with three Hornets defenders in close pursuit, Sears wove through all of them and, just 34 seconds into the extra period, put the ball past Brady for the game-winner. It was the Lakers’ only lead of the game.

What ended with so many crucial defensive plays started with neither side able to stop anything. Three minutes into the game, Skaneateles trailed 4-1, and despite calling a time-out, the Lakers saw the deficit grow to 8-3 before nine minutes had elapsed.

The comeback began with three straight Lakers goals, two of them by Riley Brogan, that made it 8-6, and from there Skaneateles exchanged goals amid a furious pace that left F-M in front, 12-9, at halftime, led by the sister tandem of Keara and Katie Shanley, who had four goals apiece.

Knowing it could not win if that pace was maintained, the Lakers drew out its possessions in the second half, helped by defensive stops that kept F-M off the board for more than 22 minutes.

With 4:07 left, Sears, with her fifth goal on a free-position shot, tied it, 12-12. Keara Shanley countered with her fifth goal 34 seconds later, but F-M would not score again, and Sears still had two more to attain.

In between those tough games, F-M got a chance to romp on Thursday, handling Auburn 21-3 as Cramer, Annie Steigerwald and Kiera Shanley nabbed four goals apiece.

Kaylee Steigerwald added three goals and Katie Shanley got two goals and two assists. Addonizio amassed five assists and Cote earned two assists as they joined DeGirolamo, Sarah Buck and Jessica Aspinall in the one-goal column.