BALDWINSVILLE – In a season with all kinds of ups and downs and starts and stops, the Baldwinsville girls basketball team still had an opportunity to make a sustained post-season run.
But it all hinged on Friday night’s opening-round game, when the no. 8 seed Bees hosted no. 9 seed Fayetteville-Manlius a mere six days after losing to those same Hornets on this same home court.
With the stakes a quarterfinal berth against top seed Auburn, B’ville took a long time in each half getting its attack in gear – too long, as it turned out, with the end result seeing F-M prevail by a score of 40-32.
For everything else that took place, the first quarter would end up haunting the Bees. Even though the Hornets struggled to score, it still did enough to get in front because B’ville managed just two points.
It was nearly the same in the third period, the Bees again cold and seeing the Hornets stretch its margin to 29-22, which proved too much to overcome.
Combined, Kyrah Wilbur and Carlie Young, B’ville’s top two scorers, were contained, something others could not make up though Madison Polky had 13 points and Natalie Hollingshead 10 points. Evie Kawa, with 12 points, led an F-M attack where Lauren Hoffman (eight points), Lydia Davidson (seven points) and Julianna Cogliandro (six points) helped.
Before this, B’ville, who lost several games on the schedule when its planned holiday trip to Orlando was canceled by winter weather issues, reclaimed one game last Tuesday and beat Westmoreland 65-35.
Outscoring the Bulldogs 38-19 in the second half after establishing a solid advantage, the Bees saw Hollingshead hit four 3-pointers and set a career mark with 17 points.
Wilbur also had 17 points, with Young earning 14 points and Olivia Davis adding eight points, but it would prove the last win of a B’ville season which concluded with a 9-11 mark.
