Coach Doug Madden and his Fayetteville-Manlius boys lacrosse team were hit with some unexpected news earlier this week.
The Hornets had been under the assumption that they had still been competing in Section III's Class B this spring.
Nope. Because of a sectional classification error, F-M was just a handful of students above the B limit and instead had to be moved up to A.
F-M collectively shrugged and kept on rolling.
Thursday, the Hornets got an overtime goal from freshman Tyler Burns to grind out a tough 8-7 win over new A rival Cicero-North Syracuse.
The victory followed up another win over an A rival, Liverpool, on Tuesday.
"It really doesn't make a difference for us. You still have to beat the teams that you're playing against to move on," Madden said of the reclassification. "It really hasn't changed anything we're trying to do. We're OK with it. We're excited for the opportunity."
Burns, Colin Clark and Sean Kellish each scored twice for the Hornets, who bump their record to 7-1. The Northstars, who fell to 6-3, were paced by four goals from Rocco Villano.
F-M seemed headed to settle the issue in regulation. It nursed a 7-6 lead late in the game, but a Hornets turnover led to a tying goal from Villano with 15 seconds left.
"We have a young team. We have freshmen out there. We have sophomores out there. We practice game situations but it's different when it's in the heat of the moment," Madden said. "Credit C-NS. They fought right to the end."
Cicero-North Syracuse got the first possession of overtime, but a Northstars bid was turned aside by F-M goalie Conor Reynolds. After a couple minutes of Hornets possession, Burns converted with 1:41 left to send everyone home.
"He kind of had his hands free and took an outside shot," Madden said. "It looked like, to me, the goalie got a piece of it and it tipped off his stick and went in the top corner."
The Hornets turned the flow of the game into a halting pace by dominating possession, with Taden Minichillo and Andrew Puccia combining to win 12-of-17 faceoffs. F-M broke to a 3-0 lead early but C-NS drew within 6-4 by the half. The Hornets held a 7-6 edge heading into the final quarter.
"That's what F-M does. They're very patient. They control a lot of the ball," said Northstars coach Chuck Wilbur. "We played a lot of defense with how patient F-M is."
F-M lost to West Genesee in last year's Class B final and seems poised to cause some problems in the A postseason. But there is no room for hiccups. After a rematch against the Wildcats on Tuesday and then a game against C power Jamesville-DeWitt on May 2, three of F-M's final five games will come against Baldwinsville (the only team to beat F-M this year), Liverpool and C-NS.
"We told the guys today, we're at our halfway point and we're 7-1. So we're happy right now," Madden said. "Our future is super-duper bright. We thought we had young pieces that we liked. But could they compete at the varsity level? I kind of feel like B'ville and C-NS and ourselves, we're all in similar situations of playing younger kids than we typically play. The league is up for grabs depending on who plays better towards the end."
C-NS, meanwhile, now has to try to snap a two-game losing streak when it visits two-time defending state champion Baldwinsville on Tuesday. The Northstars' schedule down the stretch is a bumpy one for a team trying to patch up some problems -- they have a pair of games against the Bees plus one each against Liverpool, West Genesee and F-M. Those last three teams all have wins over the Northstars this season. "We're a young group that's trying to learn how to win close games," Wilbur said. "Every time we're in these, it's another opportunity to learn and grow. These games all mean something but what you want to be is playing your best lacrosse and learn how to win by the end. All the stuff that you learn throughout the year, you hopefully grow from and you're playing better at the end."
