At least from the early returns, the Cazenovia girls lacrosse team won’t find it difficult to put shots in the net. It’s just the matter of keeping the opposition from doing the same.

The Lakers 2017 season commenced last Tuesday night at Fulton, where it fell behind early and, despite strong late-game production, could not make up that ground in a 16-12 defeat to the Red Raiders.

Like many other local sides, Cazenovia had to wait for the snow from the massive mid-March storm to melt before seeing any field time. In this instance, that hurt the defense more as Fulton proved more potent in the first half and grabbed a 9-5 lead by intermission.

Throughout the second half, any time the Lakers tried to close the gap, the Red Raiders had an answer as Hailey Carroll, with five goals and three assists, and Keara Patterson, with three goals and two assists, led Fulton’s push.

On Cazenovia’s end, Chloe Willard scored four times and added an assist. Keara Dwyer and Lucy Connor each got three-goal hat tricks, with Dwyer tacking on an assist as Zoe Shephard got one goal and one assist. Olivia Catania also converted as goalie Laura Lorraine recorded eight saves.

So began a busy opening week that continued Thursday night, at Liverpool, where the Lakers again fell behind early, but, led by Willard, stormed back to take a four-goal lead in the late going before hanging on to beat the Warriors 11-10.

The first half featured prolonged spurts by both teams. Henderson and Dwyer scored early to put Cazenovia in front 2-1, only to have Liverpool answer with three straight goals. From there, though, the Lakers’ defense clamped down and blanked the Warriors for the last 10-plus minutes of the half.

Connor would strike for back-to-back goals that tied it, 4-4. Just 28 seconds after Connor’s second tally, Willard struck for the go-ahead goal, and Molly Brown, netting her first goal of the season with 1:41 left in the half, gave the Lakers a 6-4 edge that it took to the break.

Willard took over early in the second half. Twice in a span of 90 seconds, she would put shots in the net, including one while sliding to the turf, that made it 8-5. An exchange of goals followed – Veronica Brancato for Liverpool, Dwyer for Cazenovia – before Willard returned to score twice more just 66 seconds apart.

That fifth goal by Willard, with 12:56 left, gave the Lakers an 11-7 lead, but it would not score again. That gave Liverpool ample time to come back, and it got within 11-9 on goals by Brancato and Brittany Halpin.

A stalemate followed, and the Warriors didn’t break it until Maia Henry’s goal with 1:39 left cut Cazenovia’s margin to one. Forced to defend in the waning seconds, the Lakers didn’t escape until a last Liverpool shot flew wide as the clock hit zero.

On Saturday, the Lakers hosted Jamesville-DeWitt at Cazenovia College’s Christakos Field, and started out in the same strong manner – but a Red Rams scoring blitz that covered most of the first half led to a 13-6 defeat.

Early goals by Brown and Willard had Cazenovia up 2-1, but as soon as the Lakers went ahead, J-D, who lost last year’s sectional Class B final to Watertown, put together seven in a row to take a lead it would not relinquish.

Even when Connor and Brown put in consecutive goals to close the gap to 8-4 at halftime, the Rams were not phased, pulling away again in the second half. Henderson and Dwyer had the Lakers’ lone tallies after intermission as Lizzie O’Brien (four goals) and Katie Lutz (three goals, one assist) paced J-D.

For its next test on Tuesday, Cazenovia would meet its fellow Lakers from Skaneateles at Morrisville State College, and stay busy with a Thursday trip to Rome Free Academy followed by a Saturday-afternoon game at Onondaga.