Knowing the road tests – Westhill, Skaneateles – that loomed in the last week of the regular season, the Cazenovia boys soccer team wanted to go into these games with as much confidence and momentum as possible.
In fact, the Lakers would not play for a full week before going to Westhill Tuesday night to meet the defending Section III Class B champion Warriors, with a visit to Hyatt Stadium and Skaneateles to follow on Friday.
Both of these games offered a chance at payback – and a better Section III Class B playoff seed – for the Lakers. The payback part was because Cazenovia had lost to Westhill 2-0 on Sept. 19 and, five days later, had fallen 3-2 in overtime to Skaneateles, both of those games taking place at the Sean Googin Sports Complex.
Before all this, the Lakers (12-3) had one more chance to impress the home crowd in Tuesday’s game against Solvay – which it did, spreading things around in a dominant first half and beating the Bearcats 6-1.
All through the first 40 minutes, Cazenovia attacked, and more importantly, it converted off those attacks, not stopping until it had a 4-0 edge going into the break.
More would follow in the second half as Henry Mann and Peter Burr led the way, each of them scoring twice and adding an assist.
Ross Gerber and Jonny Rodriguez had the other goals, while Teo Lang, Ted Dwyer and Brock Houghton earned assists. Between them, goalies Garrett Clabeaux and David Kempf stopped 12 of 13 shots overall.
