BALDWINSVILLE – Here was what the Baldwinsville boys lacrosse team was waiting for – at least in theory, anyway.
Ever since the Bees had dropped its first game of the season at Fayetteville-Manlius on a last-second goal May 6, it had eagerly anticipated the Hornets’ pair of late-season visits to Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium where it vowed to turn things around.
But when the opportunity arrived Tuesday night, B’ville found itself confronting an F-M side that, for other reasons, was just as motivated – and it translated into a 17-10 defeat.
Three days earlier, F-M had lost its first game of the season, routed 11-3 by Jamesville-DeWitt, and was in no mood to let the Bees hurt them, too.
The Hornets arguably won the game in the first three minutes, bolting to a 3-0 lead when Ty Teelin and Isaac Frechette scored 11 seconds apart and Logan Wilkinson added goals.
For the rest of the night, B’ville would be in catch-up mode, but F-M made it difficult as six different Hornets would net the team’s first six goals.
Then, in the first 90 seconds of the second quarter, Logan Wilkinson and Caden Yancey added goals, and the Bees trailed 9-3, but its defense settled down long enough to blank F-M for the rest of the half.
Having cut the deficit to 9-5 by halftime, B’ville appeared ready to catch up when Victor Ianno and Trey Ordway converted early in the third quarter to reduce the margin to two, but it would get no closer the rest of the way.
F-M attacker Pratt Reynolds had a lot to do with the getaway. Each of the Hornets’ last four goals in the period were put in by Reynolds, two of them coming mere seconds after Bees conversions, and this combined production produced a 14-9 edge going to the final period, where Reynolds would add a seventh goal, a new career mark.
By contrast, no B’ville player got more than two goals, which Ordway, Luke Hoskin, Keegan Lynch and Colin Socker recorded. Colin Doyle added a goal and Mike Marsallo picked up an assist. Cooper Foote had nine saves, five less than F-M’s goalie tandem of Matt LaCombe and Alex Duggleby.
Aside from winning two-thirds of the game’s face-offs, from Jacob Czyz, Wilkinson gained two goals and two assists, while Yancey finished with three goals and three assists.
Perhaps it didn’t help that B’ville came off back-to-back battles with West Genesee, the latter of them a 7-6 victory on May 22 where Hoskin and Lynch both scored twice, with single goals going to Doyle, Socker and Ordway as Foote made each of his seven saves count.
