Wild winter returned late in January, interrupting the high school sports schedule, including the Liverpool hockey team’s Thursday home game against Fayetteville-Manlius at State Fair Coliseum. But Cicero-North Syracuse did meet the Hornets last Tuesday at the Twin Rinks, taking a 4-2 loss to the Hornets. F-M, who also uses the Twin Rinks as a home facility, led all the way through, negating late goals from Zach Hall and Brian Hamilton. Evan Merulla, Kyle Siegel, Zach Ryan and Matt Kennedy each had one assist. On the defensive end, Zach Hall finished with 18 saves. Ryan Fero (three assists) and Taylor Bellina (two goals) led F-M’s attack, but the real stunner came right at game’s end. CNS only trailed, 3-2, when it pulled Hall and made one last attack on F-M’s net. When the puck went to Hornet goaltender Tyler Palmerton, he flung it down the middle of the rink — and into the unoccupied net, a rare instance of a goalie scoring. As it turned out, that seemed to fire up the Northstars on a long-term basis — for when it hosted Auburn Friday night, it put a dent into the Maroons’ playoff hopes with a 3-0 shutout victory. Auburn took more shots than CNS — but that didn’t matter as Hall enjoyed one of his best efforts of the season, recording 26 saves. Meanwhile, Siegel took over on the offensive end, as he scored twice and assisted on the other goal, by Billy Temple. Hamilton and Brad Monroe joined Temple in the assist column. This was just the Northstars’ second league win of the season. CNS (5-10-1) hosted Oswego on Tuesday and gets a rematch with F-M Thursday night.