Whatever challenge gets thrown at the Fayetteville-Manlius girls lacrosse team, it has managed to handle it and emerge with a string of high-quality victories.
Having already swept through all of its early-season foes, the Hornets took aim at undefeated Jamesville-DeWitt on Saturday afternoon and got past that test, too, using a big mid-game surge as the foundation for a 14-9 victory over the Red Rams.
J-D had shown its quality by the way it answered F-M’s early 4-2 lead. Ana Dieroff and Katie Lutz netted back-to-back goals, tying it at 4-4 and briefly raising hopes among Rams partisans that it could pull off this clash of two reigning Section III champions.
But spurred on by a series of defensive stops, F-M moved back in front, 6-4, by halftime, and then doubled that margin in the first 90 seconds of the second half thanks to goals by Gemma Addonizio and Katie Shanley.
And even when Dieroff interrupted the run, F-M kept going as Maddie Noel, scoring twice, and Kiera Shanley stretched the margin to 12-5 before the second half was nine minutes old.
Never caught, the Hornets saw Kiera Shanley work her total to four goals and one assist, part of a well-balanced attack where Noel and eighth-grader Ava Angello both scored three times. Amanda Cramer had two goals and two assists as Addonizio and Katie Shanley both had two goals and one assist.
Dieroff scored three times to pace J-D, with Lutz and Jordan Archer each getting two goals. Lindsay MacLachlan and Riley Burns had the other goals, though the Rams could not overcome the 12 saves from F-M goalie Mauwa Aombe.
The week for F-M had started with a game last Monday night against Skaneateles, a team it lost to in 2017, but got even with this time as it pulled away to defeat the Lakers 15-10.
Skaneateles won the state Class D championship a season ago, but saw consensus National Player of the Year Kyla Sears graduate and head to Princeton.
And while a solid cast of returning players remained on hand, the Lakers were not quite the same, as F-M utilized its depth to move out in front, 8-6, by halftime, and then more than double that margin after intermission.
The difference in this game was that the Hornets had far more scoring options.Addonizio, Katie Shanley and Kiera Shanley each notched three-goal hat tricks, with Annie Steigerwald adding two goals and three assists.
Cramer also scored twice as Katie Shanley got two assists, with Angello and Noel getting one goal apiece. Skaneateles, by contrast, did not get much beyond the four-goal outings by Riley Brogan and Grace Dower.
F-M went from there to Wednesday’s game at Liverpool, where it tore apart the Warriors’ defense at the outset and used that as the foundation for a 19-10 victory.
Cramer and Kiera Shanley scored in the first 29 seconds, setting an aggressive tone as each would finish with five goals. Between them, Steigerwald and Katie Shanley (who had three goals apiece), they helped F-M roar out to a 10-1 lead before the game was 20 minutes old.
Any hope of comfort was dashed, though, when Liverpool scored four times late in the half to cut the Hornets’ margin to 10-5.
Much the same thing happened in the second half, with F-M stretching the margin and the Warriors closing the gap to 13-8 before a Hornets timeout led to three goals by Noel, Angello and Katie Shanley in a span of less than two minutes to ignite a closing 6-2 push.
J-D had watched all this take place, and then resumed action on Thursday against Central Square, a game that proved quite stressful as the Red Rams held off the Redhawks 7-6.
Snow on the field hampered both teams, but Central Square, who entered the game with a 3-4 record, still controlled the tempo throughout the first half, inching out in front, 4-3, by the time they reached the break.
Defensively, J-D clamped down, limiting the Redhawks to two goals the rest of the way, and found its way in front as Burns earned a three-goal hat trick and Skyler Constantino was terrific in the net, recording 10 saves.
Dieroff, with two goals, and MacLachlan, with one goal and one assist, helped out, with Chloe Loewenguth also earning a goal. Emma Robinson scored four of Central Square’s six goals.
