Now the fun part of the schedule really begins for the Skaneateles girls lacrosse team.
In the span of eight days, the Lakers would face each of the three Class A favorites – Cicero-North Syracuse, Christian Brothers Academy and West Genesee, who also happened to occupy three of the top four spots in the first state Class A rankings of the spring.
It all began on Saturday afternoon, at Hyatt Stadium, with Skaneateles taking on C-NS, who was coming off wins over Liverpool and Baldwinsville earlier in the week.
But neither that fact, nor the Northstars’ no. 2 state Class A ranking, meant much in the face of the Lakers’ best effort, which it put on, especially in the latter stages of the first half, to win by a 16-11 margin.
The two sides traded goals early. C-NS had just tied it, 2-2, midway through the first half when Bailey Herr offered an answer just eight seconds later. As it turned out, it gave the Lakers the lead for good.
A four-minute run followed where Hannah Powers and Hannah Logan both notched a goal and assist, and Kyla Sears found the net, too, suddenly making it 6-2. When the Northstars cut the margin to 8-5, Herr and Powers both landed goals in the last minute of the half.
All of this gave Skaneateles a 10-5 halftime cushion, leading to a second half that continued the pattern of C-NS putting up plenty of goals, but the Lakers responding on each occasion.
Largely, the attack was a three-player act, with Herr stepping up in a big way by producing five goals to match the totals of Sears and Powers. Makena Gorman added one goal and one assist.
Defensively, the Lakers did its best work on C-NS junior star Hannah Duffy, holding her to a goal and two assists, which made up for the production of Bryar Cummings (four goals) and Hanna Haven (three goals, three assists) on the Northstars’ end. Emily Baldwin recorded seven saves.
Before all of this, Skaneateles had to visit state Class C no. 10-ranked Cazenovia last Tuesday. Playing at Cazenovia College’s Christakos Field, Skaneateles used timely scoring runs to turn back a pesky foe and win the Laker duel by a 15-7 margin.
Skaneateles scored the game’s first four goals before Audrey Burbidge put her team on the board midway through the first half. Then the game slowed down a bit, and when Chloe Willard and Taylor Eldred notched back-to-back goals in the last two minutes, Cazenovia had outscored Skaneateles 4-3 in the last portion of the first half.
Up by just three (7-4) at the break, Skaneateles made another run at the start of the second half with three straight goals before Chloe Willard and Keara Dwyer hit on back-to-back scoring plays that made it 10-6 with plenty of time left.
However, Skaneateles used another 4-0 run to put it away. Sears notched three goals and four assists as Powers and Logan also earned three-goal hat tricks. Herr added two goals as Gorman and Abby Kuhns notched single goals. Tate Green and Molly Newton contributed assists.
Thursday’s game against Tully got postponed until May 7, giving Skaneateles valuable time to hone its game before the tough gauntlet that began with the conquest of C-NS and would continue this week with the trips to CBA and West Genesee that followed a Monday tune-up against Onondaga.
