Fayetteville-Manlius and their versatile junior, Ryan Salzberg, opened some eyes when they competed with Westhill in their second game of the Peppino’s invitational and their season.
Salzberg really helped the F-M bench get their heads into the game and tried to carry them to a victory. Falling short by just a few minutes and points, Salzberg helped the Hornets sneak up on Westhill after trailing 37-28 at halftime.
The Hornets (0-2) outscored Westhill by two points in both the third and fourth quarters, but, F-M wasn’t able to get over the hump and lost the game by a score of 72-67.
But, it wasn’t because of a lack of effort. When Hornet head coach Jason Dudzinski met with his team after the game, he said that, “it’s about as hard as I’ve had a team play in a long time.”
Salzberg led the way with his effort throughout the game. He stepped up and put his team on his shoulders as soon as he realized that he had something special going.
He helped the Hornets as they were forced to experiment with some unusual lineups and “showed that we can play,” Dudzinski said,
The rookie coach also said that he “thought that the senior leadership was outstanding.” But, obviously, the seniors weren’t the only ones who led the way for F-M. Salzberg did, too.
Recording eight points in the final 4:39, Salzberg really competed up until the final buzzer sounded. He made a name for himself and helped his team show how tough they really are and how good they can be.
Salzberg and his hot hand allowed him to score 39 points and drain six three-pointers. When Dudzinski brought it up in the locker room, he said that he didn’t have to say much because Salzberg already knows how proud he is of him.
Despite the big day from the junior, Fayetteville-Manlius couldn’t even their record and ended up falling to 0-2 with the loss to Westhill.
