Right from the moment this season’s schedule for the Cazenovia boys lacrosse team was posted, the players knew exactly what kind of major challenge lay ahead.
Then again, the Lakers had earned this right. State Class C championships in 2011 and 2013, and a return to the state finals in 2014, have made head coach Jim Longo’s program one of the best anywhere.
So the 2015 slate gives Cazenovia the challenges it craves. There are non-league games against West Genesee, Fayetteville-Manlius, Jamesville-DeWitt and Baldwinsville, along with plenty of league challenges from Westhill, CBA, LaFayette and Homer, the team it beat in last spring’s Section III final.
As a starting point, Cazenovia merely had to travel west on Route 20 and win its latest Laker duel with another traditional power, Skaneateles, Thursday night at Hyatt Stadium – and it did so, relying on strong second-half play on both ends to rally for an 8-6 victory.
Battling through wind, on-and-off rain and its own struggles with face-offs and penalties, Cazenovia erased a 4-2 halftime deficit with four unanswered goals, only to have Skaneateles tie it, 6-6, on goals by Sam Duggan and Jack Van Slyke midway through the fourth quarter.
Then, after killing off another Skaneateles man-up situation, Cazenovia got the ball back and, through the last five minutes of regulation, patiently worked the ball around, giving itself multiple chances to take the lead.
Skaneateles resisted, blocking shots and seeing others, by Cole Willard in the last minute, zip wide of the target. But with 20.5 seconds left, Jake Stowell, working from the top of the circle, took a deft pass from P.J. Brown, leaped up to catch it in his stick, and then fired a bounce shot past Skaneateles goalie Kyle Oschner.
Having seen Skaneateles win draws all night, Cazenovia finally got one when it counted most, allowing it to run out the remaining clock, though Willard tacked on an insurance goal with 7.1 seconds to play.
Before all that, there was a first half full of opening-night mistakes. Cazenovia had scrimmaged twice before this game, but its defense had a difficult time clearing the ball out of its own end.
That, plus all of those face-offs that Skaneateles grabbed, gave the hosts a real chance to get away. But Skaneateles could not do so, only getting to a 4-1 margin before Peter Burr scored with 41 seconds left in the second quarter, which made it 4-2 at the break.
An odd third quarter followed. Due to its ability to win those face-offs, Skaneateles had most of the possession time, yet Cazenovia grabbed a 5-4 lead, starting with back-to-back goals from Alex Hunt and continuing with Willard’s go-ahead goal at the 7:23 mark.
The real star in this sequence was goalie Brenden Whalen. Perhaps no Cazenovia player has a bigger task than Whalen, who replaces Trevor Cross between the pipes, but Whalen was sensational in the third quarter, stopping all eight Skaneateles shots he faced.
Stowell’s first goal, with 9:48 left, extended Cazenovia’s lead to 6-4, but Skaneateles was far from done, rallying to force Stowell to strike again in a clutch situation.
It doesn’t get easier for the Lakers, who face Homer next Tuesday at 6:30 in a sectional final rematch on the turf at F-M before the first of those marquee non-league matches against J-D two days later at Chittenango High School.
