With little stress or worry, the Skaneateles girls lacrosse team earned a return trip to the state Class C final four at SUNY-Cortland – but the real story was what occurred elsewhere on the state tournament trail, especially on Long Island.

While the Lakers were busy smashing past Potsdam 22-2 in last Thursday’s Class C regional opener at Liverpool High School Stadium, Mount Sinai, the team that beat Skaneateles in the 2013 state final, was stunned in the Section XI final by Bayport-Blue Point 11-9.

This cleared out one of the biggest hurdles Skaneateles could have faced on the way to the state crown, though the Lakers and Mount Sinai would not have met until the championship game.

And in any case, the Lakers still had to make sure it got to Cortland, although neither the game with Potsdam, nor Saturday’s regional final win over Section IV champion Owego Free Academy at Ithaca High School, offered any real drama.

Potsdam, the Section X representatives, immediately got a taste of the Laker machine. The Sandstoners could not win any draws, and the Lakers turned each possession into a goal, earning a 7-0 lead before the game was four minutes old.

It was 8-0 before Potsdam got a goal, but after that came another Laker run which made it 11-1, and created a running clock, less than 11 minutes into the first half. Despite another Potsdam goal, Skaneateles extended the lead to 15-2 by halftime and breezed the rest of the way, able to use its reserves throughout the second half.

Only Nicole Beatson, with five goals, and Kyla Sears, with four goals, scored more than once. Thirteen other players had single goals, including Alana Navaroli, who earned three assists, and Bailey Herr, who gained two assists.

Casey VanSlyke, Molly Wood, Hannah Powers, Catie Woodruff, Hannah Logan, Natalie Roche, Molly Rourke, Mae McGlynn, Isabella Falcone, Makena Gorman and Molly Newton took turns finding the net, while Logan, McGlynn, VanSlyke, Roche and Sears earned single assists.

Now it was on to Ithaca, and a match with Owego that, essentially, followed the same course. With the seniors on the team not looking ahead to that night’s Senior Ball, the Lakers toyed with the Indians and prevailed by a score of 17-2.

By the time the game was five minutes old, it was 4-0, Wood getting it started with a pair of goals before Logan fed Navaroli for one goal, and then scored another.

Any slim hopes Owego possessed vanished in the ensuing minutes, when Mallorie Olin made a series of point-blank stops and Navaroli scored one goal and assisted on another, by Powers, that made it 6-0.

A third goal from Wood, followed by VanSlyke, Newton and Sears finding the net, created the running clock near the midway point of the first half, and from there Skaneateles slowed things down, only making it 11-0 by halftime.

More fun would follow, as Wood would run her total to five goals, while Powers managed that point total with three goals and two assists.

Logan managed two goals and two assists, with Sears and Navaroli both getting two goals and one assist. VanSlyke and Newton had matching totals of one goal and three assists as Beatson earned a goal and two assists.

And now it was time for the trip to Cortland, where in Friday’s state semifinal at noon Skaneateles will face Section V champion Honeoye Falls-Lima, who ripped past Lake Shore (Section VI) 19-4 in its regional final. The winner advances to Saturday’s state final, which also starts at noon.