On consecutive nights, each of Cazenovia’s basketball teams sought to get the best of their Laker counterparts from Skaneateles, but neither of them would find success.
In the case of the boys side, Cazenovia at least played on its home court at Buckley Gym and had a chance down the stretch Friday night, only to fall short as Skaneateles, paced by a hot-shooting Pete Knupp, prevailed by a 68-60 margin.
Having won its first two games of the season, Cazenovia, at first, appeared well on its way to 3-0 as eight first-quarter points from Kevin Ridings produced a 16-11 lead.
But then Knupp took over, the Skaneateles guard constantly flashing open and constantly converting as he hit six 3-pointers in the first half alone, turning a deficit for the visitors into a 34-29 edge by the time they reached the break.
Fighting back, Cazenovia would forge a 42-42 tie going into the fourth quarter, but again Skaneateles struck with outside shots – not from Knupp, but from his teammates, Jake Peterson and Jake Reed, who would finish with three 3-pointers apiece.
Trailing 57-49 with less than three minutes left, Cazenovia pulled within four, 60-56, in the last minute, but could inch no closer despite 19 points from Ridings, 14 points from Keaton Ackermann and 12 points from Ryan Henderson as Jake Shaffner added eight points.
Knupp was the main story of the night. All told, he drained six 3-pointers and also made several free throws down the stretch (15 in all) to produce a career-high 37 points, with Reed (16 points) offering ample support.
A night earlier, the Cazenovia girls ventured to Skaneateles, but didn’t bring its offense along, something that it paid for in a 46-28 defeat.
Having lost two days of practice, Cazenovia’s girls may have expected some struggles at Skaneateles, who also had a 1-1 record, but could not have imagined just how tough it would get.
Without a field goal throughout much of the first quarter, Cazenovia finally made some baskets, but still trailed, 15-8, going to the second period.
Through the game’s middle stages, each Lakers side would fare well on the defensive end, but that didn’t help Cazenovia, who kept seeing its deficit grow and never notched more than eight points in any single period.
Maggie Johnson led with seven points, as no Cazenovia player had more than two field goals. By contrast, Elizabeth Lane, the Skaneateles senior who passed 1,000 career points in a Dec. 1 loss to Bishop Ludden, managed 17 points, to go with eight rebounds and four steals.
This came at the end of a week curtailed by bad weather, which postponed a pair of games against Solvay last Tuesday. But while the boys contest with the Bearcats would take place a week later, the girls game won’t get made up until Feb. 12, at the end of the regular season.
In a non-league game Saturday at Central Square as part of the Tracy Zimmer Tournament, the Lakers faced a Redhawks side that, the night before, had made an outrageous fourth-quarter comeback against Corcoran, outscoring the Cougars 27-4 in that last period to pull out a 54-52 win.
Central Square would not have a letdown, beating the Lakers 47-38 by far more conventional means, namely by taking an early 16-9 lead and making Cazenovia chase them the rest of the game, without success.
Johnson did all that she could, earning seven of her team-high 15 points at the free-throw line, while Audrey Burbidge’s pair of 3-pointers led to nine points overall. Five Redhawks players had six or more points, led by Katie Schumaker’s total of 14 points.
Cazenovia’s girls would return home Tuesday to face Vernon-Verona-Sherrill and then visit Bishop Grimes on Friday night, while the boys Lakers make up the snowed-out Solvay game a night before hosting Camden.