When the Baldwinsville girls basketball team’s 12-game win streak ended at Cicero-North Syracuse on Jan. 17, the pressure of maintaining an undefeated mark was off.
However, the Bees now stood in second place behind the Northstars in the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division standings. What was more, C-NS had now passed them in the state AA rankings, sitting at no. 17 to the Bees’ no. 19 mark.
For a week, B’ville waited for a chance to show that it could recover from a setback. And the Bees would do so Friday night at Fayetteville-Manlius, pushed hard by the Hornets, but emerging with a 50-39 victory.
This was different from their first encounter three weeks earlier at Baker High School, for while it won that game 50-36, in that instance B’ville jumped out 22-6 in the first quarter and essentially maintained that margin the rest of the way.
Here, the teams stayed close for most of the first half, though the Bees did outscore F-M 14-8 in the second quarter. But the Hornets fired back in the third period, converting some baskets and moving within three, 36-33.
As before, F-M concentrated its production on the duo of Lexie Roe and Lily Fish, Roe earning 17 points and Fish getting 11 points, but other than that the Hornets only managed four total field goals.
And it was B’ville’s defense that ultimately decided matters, keeping F-M quiet for long stretches of the fourth quarter as it steadily pulled clear, with the duo of Katie Pascale and Sydney Huhtala at the forefront.
Pascale finished with 15 points, just ahead of Huhtala’s total of 14 points. Kyrah Wilbur earned eight points as Hannah Mimas and Ola Bednarczyk got four points apiece.
A big week of home games now looms for B’ville as Nottingham brings a 7-6 record on Tuesday and then West Genesee visits on Friday, the three-time defending sectional champion Wildcats burning to avenge a 52-40 defeat to the Bees back on Dec. 10.
