Weather of all types has proven to be a large story in local high school winter sports, and ice hockey has not escaped the brunt of it.
Cazenovia’s ice hockey team, for example, was unable to host reigning state Division II champion CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt last Tuesday night at the SUNY-Morrisville IcePlex due to cold temperatures and wind chills that closed most of the area’s schools.
That marked the Lakers’ second postponement in less than a week, as similar weather curtailed Cazenovia’s appearance in the Cicero-North Syracuse Optimist Tournament on Jan. 3-4, limiting it to one game – a 4-0 defeat to the Syracuse Cougars. They’ll make up the C-NS game this Saturday at 8:15.
So the Lakers were eager to start again when it ventured to Casey Rink last Friday to face Auburn, who was riding a three-game win streak.
And the Maroons would make it four in a row, stopping the Lakers 3-1 in large part due to what happened in the first period.
Before Cazenovia could settle down, Auburn had bolted to a 2-0 lead, and it would tack on another goal in the second period as Kaiden Tubbert scored twice and Dan Entenmann had the other goal.
Billy Rankin’s goal, assisted by Trevor Cross and Brendan Whalen, put the Lakers on the board in that same second period, but it could get nothing else past Maroons goalie Mike Currier, who only had to make 15 saves due to the protection of his defenders. Cazenovia netminder Mario Benedetti returned to action and recorded 27 saves.
With a 2-6-2 mark at the midway point of the regular season, the Lakers would host state Division II no. 7-ranked Skaneateles Tuesday and Cortland-Homer on Friday before the trip to face C-NS.
