The Red Raiders traveled to Cicero-North Syracuse High School in Syracuse for the first of the three Upstate semi finals games today. It has been a long time for the Fayetteville-Manlius Hornets to get this far, having to battle the tough Class A schedule in Section Three.

Dan McAvoy scored the first goal of the game for Fairport. Working from the left wing, he sharply turned back and shot underhand to give the Red Raiders a 1-0 lead at 8:57. F-M took the ensuing face off but lost control of the ball to the Red Raiders who then took some time off the clock. Senior attackman Ryan Crater, working from the top center quickly passed the ball to Justin Kesselring for a Fairport goal at 7:59. On the third trip to their end, Nick Orsini ran a sweep left and scored an unassisted goal at 4:05. After missing a one-one-one, Section Three`s leading scorer, Jack Wilson chased down his own shot and quickly moved it to Dylan Taylor-Wolford, out front, who scored on a bounced shot past Fairport`s Joey Scalise. Fairport had the ball after the face off and after a couple of missed shots, the first quarter ended with the Red Raiders up 3-1.

Both goalies made saves before Wilson scored after breaking past two Fairport defensemen and taking the scored to 3-2 with 7:12 left in the half. Fairport took time off the clock each time they had offensive sets. The Hornets tied the game at 3-3 when Wilson scored on a feed from senior middie Luke Krizman who threw the ball from top center top to the right wing. Head Coach Mike Torrelli called a time out with just under a minute in the half. After three missed shots and with time running down, McAvoy ran hard from behind the goal and after jumping up in the air, scored with less than one second left. The Red Raider took the half-time lead 4-3.

Key in the first half was turnovers, where F-M had nine and Fairport had three. The extra ball time allowed the Red Raiders to take time in their offensive end and set up the looks they wanted. A significant number of shots hit the pipes at both end of the field.

Fairport won the first possession on a technical face off and after setting up, Shane Cronkwright drove hard from the left and bounced one past F-M goalie Brian Charlamb. After the next face off Orsini struck again with a shot from out front that bounced off Charlamb`s stick and went in, giving Fairport a 6-3 lead. Less than a minute later, Fairport scored again, as Kacin Welch put one in on a switchback. Thirty-four seconds later, F-M found the nets as Erik Badger had a change of direction dodge and took the score to 7-4. After a couple of saves by Scalise that bounced back out, Alex Lenze picked up a ground ball and quickly scored to take the game to 7-5. Badger scored again at 4:00 with an outside shot from top center, scoring the third in a row. F-M tied the game again at 7-7 with Wilson running it in from a clear. The Hornets had scored four in a row and owned the third quarter.

Wilson, scoring less than a minute into the last quarter gave the Hornets their first lead of the game (8-7). At 4:50, Fairport tied that game with McAvoy`s outside low shot from the front. The Hornets picked up the face off and had the first offensive try. Scalise made a nice save, but the ball was lost on the clear. Scalise made a second save and barely cleared the ball, before a Fairport time out with 3:21 left in regulation. After the short break, Welch took the ball way out front and bounced it in for a 9-8 lead, but F-M won the next face off on a technical foul and worked the ball around looking for Wilson. Fairport knocked the ball down but Fairport lost possession and F-M took a time out with 1:21 left. Wilson dodged his man and for the fifth time, tied the game at 9-9 with 0:50. Fairport won a critical face off and Coach Torrelli called for a time out with 0:40 left. The Red Raiders got an outside shot just at the end of the quarter, but the teams remained tied after four quarters.

The Hornets won the face off and had first chance to score. They called time out at 3:32. After a couple of drives by Wilson, senior defenseman Sam Dovan got control of the ball the Riders took the ball up field and called a Fairport time out with 2:55 left in the first overtime period. Orsini had a shot (wide), but Fairport maintained the possession. McAvoy shot but it was saved by Charlamb. The ball moved to the other end where Scalise made his own save. Wilson then took a shot (wide) from top center. Wilson got the ball from behind the net and ran a tight cut to the goal, scoring the game-winning goal with an underhand shot. Wilson was in on all but four goals in the game. The Hornets will play at Hofstra on Saturday against Massapequa for the State Championship (11:00 am start).