It started out, for the Cazenovia boys lacrosse team, as a potentially stressful Section III Class C semifinal against its fellow Lakers from Skaneateles Thursday night at East Syracuse Minoa Stadium.
But it turned, in the third quarter, into a textbook display of dominant lacrosse that resulted in a 17-5 victory and a spot in Saturday night’s final at the Carrier Dome against no. 7 seed LaFayette, who has required overtime wins over Westhill and Homer by equal 12-11 margins to get this far.
What had given Skaneateles the belief that it could pull off the shocker was the fact that it nearly did so back on April 30 at the Sean Googin Sports Complex, pulling within one goal deep into the second half and leaving with a modest 12-10 defeat on the ledger.
Also, the sides were familiar because they had met in this same sectional semifinal round on this same ESM turf in 2015. Cazenovia won then, too, and would do so now in a manner that had to scare any future foe.
Skaneateles struck first when Reggie Buell put a shot past Brenden Whalen for the game’s first goal. Yet that lead soon vanished as Cazenovia rattled off three straight goals and, despite a Sam Duggan tally, was up 5-2 at the end of the opening period.
For a long stretch of the second quarter, it looked like Skaneateles would catch up. Devin Callahan put in a terrific goal and Duggan struck for the second time to make it 5-4, but just at that moment an ill-timed penalty snatched away the momentum.
Cazenovia, like all great teams, exploited that mistake, Alex Nowak scoring on the man-up with 1:04 left in the half to extend its lead to 6-4, where it stayed until the break. Then, in the third period, Cazenovia unloaded on Skaneateles.
Winning face-offs and finding every defensive weakness, the champs reeled off nine straight goals in the period, three of them by All-American Cole Willard, and two each by Thomas Bragg and Derek White. That all but ended the Skaneateles cause, and the run would reach 12-0 before a late and meaningless Skaneateles goal.
Jake Lewis served as a central figure on the attack, notching five assists to go with his pair of goals, but the balance was almost ideal – and Nowak was at the forefront, scoring the game’s first two goals, the critical one before halftime and a fourth goal by night’s end.
Willard and White both had three goals and one assist, with Jake Stowell getting two goals and two assists. Noah Nash tacked on a fourth-quarter tally.
