A battle for fourth place in Division I ice hockey has unfolded, with Fayetteville-Manlius and CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt squarely in the mix along with Cicero-North Syracuse and Rome Free Academy.
The Hornets would have a key game in this sequence last Thursday night, facing Cicero-North Syracuse in the Twin Rinks facility the two programs share. And it was F-M emerging on top, edging the Northstars 3-2.
Even with C-NS coming off defeats to Ithaca and Fulton earlier in the week, the Hornets did not take the assignment lightly, putting together a fine all-around effort to, for the moment, climb up to fourth place in those league standings.
Before this, F-M played last Tuesday against Watertown IHC at Fairgrounds Arena and earned its second consecutive shutout, blanking the Cavaliers 4-0 as Brandon Heyman stopped all 21 shots he faced.
Ben Hammond, with two goals and one assist, hurt IHC the most as Will Duncanson and Zach Bookman had two assists apiece. Spencer Sasenbury and Josh Kuchinski had the other goals, with Jackson Denton contributing an assist.
This didn’t quite match the big production the Hornets put together on Jan. 12 when it routed Ontario Bay 13-0, a game where 10 different F-M players had a goal, led by Jackson Denton’s hat trick and two assists.
Jonas Oesterle scored twice, with Hammond getting a goal and three assists. Kuchinski and Caleb Erno each had two assists as Kuchinski, Jason Tedeschi, John Manzi, Colin Debejian, Mike Hockenberger and Riley Carr took turns netting goals, Sasenbury and Jack Coughlin adding assists.
Back on Tuesday night, CBA/J-D offered a challenge to state Division I no. 3-ranked Syracuse at Meachem Rink, but did not get on the board in a 5-0 defeat to the Cougars.
The Brothers took only 14 shots, all stopped by Alex Moreno. Meanwhile, Joe Salvador made 37 saves, but the Cougars still got to him twice in the first period and three more times in the third period as Ryan Eccles had two goals and one assist, with single goals going to Kaleb Benedict, Nelson Jones and Wyatt Weil.
As if this wasn’t difficult enough, CBA/J-D had to host West Genesee Thursday night at Onondaga Nation Arena, and once again the Brothers were kept off the board, shut out this time by a 4-0 margin.
None of CBA/J-D’s 13 shots got past WG goalie Chris Wells. It was scoreless until the second period, when the Wildcats converted twice, and added two more in the final period as Dan Holzhauer had two goals, the others going to Ryan Washo and Jack Miller.
