CENTRAL NEW YORK – Up and down throughout its early portion of the season, the Fayetteville-Manlius ice hockey team sought some stability when it went to the J.M. McDonald Sports Complex for the Dec. 28-29 Cortland-Homer Holiday Tournament.

The Hornets found itself against the host Golden Eagles in the first round, and it was a game that was close for a long while before a deep, balanced F-M attack sealed matters late in a 7-3 victory.

Gabe O’Connor’s goal and assist had Cortland-Homer only trailing by one, 4-3, through two periods. F-M kept attacking, though, and netted three unanswered goals in the final period to seal it.

Six different Hornets scored, with only Will Sanzone getting a pair of goals and Walker Thomson notching three assists as Drew Mayne, Noah Chen and Henry Dougherty each had one goal and one assist.

Colton Walkup and Greyson Mucha had goals, too, with single assists credited to Nico Capriotti, Joey Leveroni, Gavin Patnode, Aiden Ashworth, Teddy Smart and Connor McDonald.

What gave F-M a possible advantage going into the Dec. 29 final was that its opponent, Cazenovia, had gone into overtime the day before, rallying to beat Albany CBA 6-5.

With more energy on hand, the Hornets beat the Lakers 3-1, all of the goals happening in the second period. Drew Mayne and Tyler Mayne led the charge, each getting one goal and one assist to help F-M break out of a 1-1 tie.

Sanzone also converted in that period, with Noah Chen getting an assist. Jack Donlin landed Cazenovia’s lone goal, but nothing else got past Finger, who stopped 23 of the 24 shots he faced.

F-M’s strong play did not carry over into the new year, though, as it went to Fulton last Wednesday and, against the combined Fulton/Liverpool squad known as CNY Fusion, lost by a score of 4-1.

Proving that its 5-2-1 start was not a fluke, Fusion kept the Hornets off the board in the first two periods largely due to the work of goalie Trevor Smith, who would finish with 25 saves.

Smart did score a third-period goal assisted by Dougherty, but F-M got nothing more and Fusion pulled clear with four different players – Gavin Rodman, Alex Kirkby, Andrew Gabor and John LaPlante – getting the four goals to overcome Finger’s 24 saves.

While all that was going on, Christian Brothers Academy/Jamesville-DeWitt, who had lost three of four, aimed for a turnaround playing twice in the Cicero-North Syracuse Optimist Tournament at the Twin Rinks.

C-NS offered no relief, though, blanking the Brothers 5-0 in the opening round with an attack carried by the duo of Nate Bustin and Andrew Davis.

All that Bustin did was net a three-goal hat trick, two of those goals assisted by Davis, who found the net twice himself to negate Ben Lowell’s 19 saves. None of CBA/J-D’s 25 shots got past Northstars goalie Leyton Sullivan.

A day later, it was CBA/J-D against Norwood-Norfolk, from Section X, and it got back into gear with a 5-1 victory broken open by scoring three times in the second period.

Griffon Fillighera scored twice and added an assist. Single goals went to Denver Qiao, Gavin Dunford and Ryan Hayden, with Jack Dement, Paul Brown, Logan Novak, Quinn Wimer and Will Sharlow each getting one assist.

Nearly a week later, CBA/J-D traveled to Oswego and took a 5-4 defeat to the Buccaneers despite Wimer assisting on all four of the Brothers’ goals – two by James Stanton, one each by Hayden and Jack Dement. Ian Cady (one goal, four assists) had a part in all of Oswego’s goals as Mason Naumann had two goals and an assist.

A 4-0 shutout of Broome County on Friday night pushed CBA/J-D back above the .500 mark at 6-5 overall. Goals by Dement, Wimer, Grady Shanley and Logan Novak proved enough as Dement and Wimer also got assists and Justin Buffum stopped all 26 shots he faced.