Just a goal by the home team in the second quarter separated the visiting Hornets and Victor.
For Fayetteville-Manlius, the 9-8 loss could serve as a wake-up call and a little more motivation to finish the regular season off strong. Players on the losing side expressed their thoughts on their performance, as one said that it was “pretty good” and another player offered that it wasn’t the “best” they have played, but it wasn’t a bad effort.
The most important thing about this game is the resilience that F-M (7-3, 4-1) demonstrated.
Even though they lost the game, the fact that they were losing 7-3 about halfway through the third quarter and remained poised and didn’t give up is something that they should be happy about.
Goalie Ryan Boshart played really well for being under pressure over and over again. Even though Victor found a way to sneak nine shots passed Boshart, there were also ten shots that he denied and disrupted on their way to the goal.
A spectator pointed out that the short stick midfielders played well on the defensive end. They said that those midfielders were the ones who stepped up and did a good job of playing one-on-one defense.
When it comes down to it, the Hornets shied away from what made them so successful against Syracuse, when they were moving the ball around until they earned a quality shot on goal.
They had assists on 17 of 21 goals against Syracuse, but only had four assists on eight goals in this game.
Donovan Welsh had another big game, as he accounted for four goals. F-M’s senior finished with two goals and two assists.
Nick Papa and Tommy Ryu both continued to support the Hornets and made sure to record one of each. They were two of the four Hornet players to have an assist. Luke Burnam and James Rettinger were the other two competitors for F-M to register assists.
Burnam also scored F-M’s first goal of the contest and then supported their run at the end of the game by depositing their last two goals. He took six shots, four more than his teammate, Ryan Cicci, did. One of Cicci’s two shots found the back of the goal.
The Hornets fell short and lost to Victor and were separated by one goal in the second quarter.
