With all of the regular-season tests finally behind them, the Cazenovia field hockey team could zero in on the most important stuff – namely, securing an 11th consecutive Section III championship and perhaps much more.
In order to have maximum readiness and confidence for this post-season, the Lakers took every opportunity to load up its schedule, with each non-league game against a high-quality opponent, including home-and-home match-ups with Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool.
Cazenovia swept all four of those matches, completing the sweep last Tuesday afternoon at Burton Street Elementary when it methodically took apart Liverpool in a 4-0 decision more lopsided than the 5-2 win at LHS Stadium three weeks earlier.
Here, the possession game was all in the Lakers’ favor, as it held the Warriors to a single shot all afternoon while spreading out its attack in a manner that must frighten future opponents.
Four different players got goals, and none of them was Zoe Shephard, who gladly settled for an assist. Mikaylee Whalen, Morgan Giordano, Molly LaHart and Caeli Carroll earned those goals, Whalen adding an assist.
A real test would come in Thursday’s regular-season finale as Port Byron, sporting a 12-3 record, visited Burton Street. And the Panthers proved that those 12 wins weren’t a fluke, pushing Cazenovia all the way to overtime before the Lakers pulled out a 1-0 decision.
Unlike so many home games, the Lakers didn’t camp out in the opposition’s end of the field. Instead, through 60 minutes of regulation, the flow of play went back and forth, with each team gaining plenty of opportunities, but not converting.
In fact, Port Byron took more shots, only to have Cazenovia’s defenders smother them or, if that didn’t work, Shea Flannery would kick them away, each of her nine saves proving vital to the outcome.
Not until the seven-on-seven OT period did the breakthrough take place, and with Port Byron so worried about the likes of Whalen and Shephard, it was senior Delaney Yates earning the decisive goal in her last regular-season home game, getting open near the net and converting off the rebound of a shot taken by Shephard.
At 14-2 overall, Cazenovia won the Onondaga High School League American division title, knowing that the much larger battle in the sectional playoffs loomed ahead.
But by earning the top seed again in the six-team sectional Class C bracket, the Lakers could rest and practice for a full week before going into Sunday’s semifinal at 3 p.m. at Fayetteville-Manlius, where it will meet the winner of Tuesday’s opening-round game between no. 4 seed Little Falls and no. 5 seed Clinton.
