The only thing that may have hurt the Cazenovia boys lacrosse team was the sheer number of games it had to face in a short time period.
Beginning with Chenango Valley on April 19, the Lakers would play five games in eight days, a demanding gauntlet even if the opponents were all ones Cazenovia could handle.
Indeed, the Lakers did beat Chenango Valley, along with Tully on April 21. But it got slowed up in last Monday’s game at Carthage, seeing a four-goal lead vanish late in regulation as it lost in double overtime to the Comets 9-8.
Though it entered the game at 3-1, Carthage quickly fell behind, and the Lakers extended its margin to 8-4 by the end of the third period, led by Alex Nowak, who scored four times as Thomas Bragg added two goals. Ryan Romagnoli had two assists as Matt McLaughlin and Tim Burr had single goals.
Despite all this, the Comets caught up in the fourth quarter, netting three straight goals to cut the deficit to 8-7 before Luke Piroli put in the tying goal late in regulation.
Then it went to OT. One period settled nothing, but in the second OT Carthage’s Dylan Cook fired it past R.J. Smith, who by that point had recorded 13 saves.
Cook and Piroli both finished with two goals as Nick Cavellier led the Comets with three goals and one assist. Carthage goalie Blake Massey had 14 saves.
With no time to rest, the Lakers urned around to face Bishop Ludden/Onondaga the very next day at Cazenovia College’s Christakos Field, and took out plenty of frustrations while earning a 16-2 victory.
The margin was 10-1 by halftime, and kept growing as Ludden/OCS had no answer for Bragg, who piled up eight goals, half his team’s total.
Nowak cooled off from the Carthage game, but still scored twice, as did Pezzi, with Brody Coleman getting a goal and two assists. Steve Lafever had one goal and one assist as Tom Fabbioli and Cole Basic also scored, with Schug and Romagnoli getting assists.
A key test came on Thursday as, at Christakos Field, Cazenovia met LaFayette. Coming as it did at the end of this busy stretch, the Lakers had all the excuses lined up, but instead it went out and beat the Lancers 11-8
Sensing it had to do the important work early,Caenovia attacked hard and, by halftime, had a 10-5 edge. Then it slowed things down, and while shut out in the fourth quarter, the Lakers’ defense did enough to keep LaFayette from catching up.
Bragg’s five goals gave him 15 for the week as he also earned a pair of assists. Nowak and Coleman helped out with three-goal hat tricks, Nowak adding two assists as Basic and Pezzi had two assists apiece.
This happened as Chittenango took an 18-4 defeat to Skaneateles, who broke out of its own slump by scoring 10 goals in the second quarter alone as Nick Wamp (six goals, one assist) and John Danforth (four goals, one assist) led those other Lakers.
Seth Spurgeon put in three of the Bears’ goals and Tanner Laramee had the other, with assists going to Shane Kolb and Caleb Barnard. Patrick Donner and Corey Jackowski combined to make 18 saves.
This dropped the Bears’ record to 4-3 as it took on Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Saturday before a Tuesday showdown with Cazenovia and a Friday visit from Indian River. The Lakers (6-4), after it faces Chittenango, goes to Marcellus Thursday night.
