Whether it’s a girls team defending a championship, or a boys team out to reclaim one, Fayetteville-Manlius has plenty of reason to feel excited about what its soccer teams could accomplish in the upcoming Section III Class AA playoffs.
The girls Hornets moved up to no. 12 in the state AA rankings after it knocked off Baldwinsville and West Genesee in back-to-back games, and two more wins were added during the last week of the regular season.
At Liverpool on a rain-soaked Wednesday evening, F-M was relatively quiet early, but turned a modest one-goal margin into something more comfortable in the second half of a 4-0 victory over the Warriors.
Hannah Knych, with one goal and one assist, led a well-balanced Hornets attack as Lauren Clark, Anna Hartzheim and Ryann Dauksza also earned goals. Assists were credited to Sophia TenEyck and Victoria Horton.
Then F-M had a high-profile regular-season finale on Saturday, challenging state Class A no. 2-ranked Jamesville-DeWitt and winning that challenge in a hard-fought 1-0 victory over the Red Rams.
Neither side scored in the first half. And the Hornets’ defense remained stingy in the second half as Sydney Mahr stopped all six shots she faced and the back line of Laura Bonomo, Ryann Dauksza and Alora Miller frustrated J-D’s potent group of attackers.
Meanwhile, F-M had just as many opportunities, and finally put one past Rams goalie Katie Cappelletti in the second half when Clark scored off a feed from Knych.
All of this ultimately put F-M into the top seed in the six-team sectional Class AA bracket. The Hornets, along with no. 2 seed B’ville, are off until the Oct. 30 semifinals at Central Square, with the Hornets awaiting Auburn or Cicero-North Syracuse and the Bees to face West Genesee or Rome Free Academy.
As for the F-M boys, it was no. 7 in the state Class AA poll as West Genesee paid a visit to Swan Pond last Tuesday night, and once again the Hornets proved quite productive in a 4-1 win over the Wildcats.
This was a night that belonged to Nino Pagano. Often in the shadow of his brother, Cheech, Nino did assist on Cheech’s goal to get F-M on the board in the 23rd minute, but from there he put in two goals of his own.
Over a 26-minute span, the Hornets produced all of its offense, with Yousef Kamel joining the Pagano brothers in the goal-scoring column and assists going to Ziad Abdul-Malak, Corey Gallagher and Riley Warren-Nichols.
F-M would host Nottingham on Saturday afternoon in its regular-season finale and unloaded in a way it had not done all season, getting to double digits on the scoreboard while blanking the Bulldogs 10-0.
Slotted into the no. 2 seed in its eight-team sectional Class AA bracket, the Hornets will host no. 7 seed Liverpool Thursday night in the quarterfinals, the winner to get Utica Proctor or Henninger in the Oct. 30 semifinal at Jamesville-DeWitt.
