For the Cazenovia boys soccer team, topping Chittenango twice in the span of five days in the middle of the regular season was not enough.
No, the Lakers had to beat the Bears a third time – and as a “home team” playing on the Bears’ home field, no less – within the crucible of the Section III Class B playoffs.
Somehow, Cazenovia handled all of this craziness and endured some of the season’s worst playing conditions to take over in the waning minutes of the second half to eliminate Chittenango 3-0 last Wednesday night.
It all got set up when the Lakers found that it had the no. 5 seed in the 16-team sectional bracket, with the Bears given the no. 12 seed, but it didn’t stop there.
With beat-up field conditions at the Sean Googin Sports Complex and an adverse forecast, Cazenovia decided to move the game, hoping it could use a nearby college Field Turf facility, perhaps at Cazenovia College or Morrisville State.
When none were available, it was decided to have the game at Chittenango. Thus, the Lakers had on its home blue jerseys, but no other advantage other than the memory of outscoring the Bears 6-1 in those two encounters on Sept. 27 and Oct. 1.
Given the cold wind and mixed precipitation present on this night, it wasn’t surprising that the first half ended 0-0. Still, Cazenovia was controlling the flow of play, getting a series of set pieces, including corner kicks, but not converting.
Deep into the second half it remained deadlocked, the pressure growing. Finally, with less than eight minutes left in regulation, on the team’s 11th corner kick, the Lakers converted as Tanner Dydo’s header off Brian Pezzi’s feed, eluded Noah Schnauffer and found the net.
By that point, Schnauffer had 12 saves, but with the pressure off, Cazenovia beat him twice more in the waning minutes, again converting a Pezzi corner kick, this time with Trey Schug, and then having Joe Spires net a third goal off Justin Gagnon’s feed.
All of this sent Cazenovia into Saturday’s sectional quarterfinal at SUNY Polytechnic Institute at Utica against no. 4 seed Clinton, who had rolled past Oneida 6-0 in its opening-round game.
What gave the Lakers even more motivation was that, in its half of the sectional bracket, top-seeded Watertown IHC had fallen 1-0 to Camden on Friday in its sectional quarterfinal, opening up a path to the championship game.
So despite the unfamiliar college setting, and the late-Saturday-night start time, Cazenovia poured it on Clinton, with Spires getting a hat trick as the Lakers prevailed 4-1 over the Warriors.
Near the midway point of the first half, in the 18th minute, Dydo continued his playoff tear, heading in Pezzi’s corner kick to put the Lakers in front. Less than two minutes later, Cazenovia earned a free kick, and Spires fired it home, doubling the Lakers’ margin to 2-0, where it stood at halftime.
The second half was not even four minutes old when Spires hit on a second goal, this time assisted by Chase Willard. Clinton got on the board with a penalty kick in the 54th minute, but Spires all but put the game away when he converted on his third goal of the night, and 22nd of the season, in the 59th minute.
So it’s Cazenovia against the upstarts from Camden in one sectional semifinal Wednesday night at 5:30 at Jamesville-DeWitt, with two-time defending champion Westhill and state no. 5-ranked Skaneateles squaring off in the other semifinal immediately following that game.
