For most of the Cazenovia boys basketball team’s season opener at Solvay last Wednesday night, it played quite well and, in fact, was ahead on the scoreboard.
It was just the second quarter that the Lakers would like to forget, for those eight minutes rendered everything else moot as the visitors took a 69-49 defeat to the Bearcats.
A season ago, Cazenovia made it to the Section III Class B quarterfinals before falling to eventual champion Westhill. To a man, the returning Lakers said that winning again would require the offense to reach the same level as its normally strong defense.
That was working, too, for the Lakers as it matched baskets with Solvay and led 19-18 through one period. Then the second period started and the whole plan fell apart.
Not only did the Bearcats get hot from the field, it stopped everything Cazenovia tried, and the carnage didn’t stop until Solvay had completed a 26-3 run and led 44-22 going to halftime.
To its credit, the Lakers played a solid second half, Drew Johnson working his total to 20 points as Kevin Ammann (nine points), Ian Fostvelt (seven points) and Trey Schug (six points) helped out.
Solvay would not get caught, though. It helped the Bearcats to have a pair of go-to guys as Brock Bagozzi’s 22 points included five 3-pointers and Justin Scott chimed in with 20 points.
Now the Lakers went on the road for a weekend tournament at North Warren where it would face Peru on Friday night and Saranac Lake on Saturday afternoon.
In the opener, Cazenovia flattened Peru 71-28, and while the second game was much closer, the Lakers won here, too, topping Saranac Lake 75-63 to improve to 2-1 for the week.
Cazenovia has its home opener Tuesday at Buckley Gym against Bishop Ludden, who is under the direction of new head coach Gallagher Driscoll after the retirement of Pat Donnelly. Then the Lakers face PSLA-Fowler on Saturday as part of the Fastrac Classic at Corcoran High School.
The task for Chittenango, after back-to-back sectional Class B finals appearances, is to try and replicate that same success without so many of the players responsible for it.
Zach Falkenburg, Dylan Voutsinas, Sam Hill, Matt Lanphear and Jacob Burgun all graduated, so a brand-new starting five debuted for the Bears last Friday at Skaneateles, who two nights earlier had knocked off reigning sectional champion Westhill.
After a week to further work on things, Chittenango travels to Phoenix this Friday before its Dec. 10 home opener against Vernon-Verona-Sherrill.
