It’s rare to have the same two teams meet in high school basketball in consecutive games, but that’s what the Skaneateles girls Lakers had to do with Chittenango.
The Lakers and Bears first met on Nov. 30, with Ally Shoemaker’s triple-double helping Chittenango to prevail 63-45, a letdown for Skaneateles in the wake of its big season-opening win over Westhill earlier that week.
A mere four days later, the Lakers were again confronting Chittenango. Having learned quickly from that encounter, Skaneateles hung close and then, in the third quarter, took full command, eventually beating the Bears 62-46 to salvage a split of the series.
During most of the first half, the Lakers found itself again chasing Chittenango, but not letting them get away, whittling down a 15-10 deficit to just one, 25-24, by the time they reached the break.
Everything changed in the third quarter. Red-hot on one end and cranking up its defense at the same time, Skaneateles outscored Chittenango 21-6 in that frame, accounting for most of its eventual winning margin.
As the case throughout the season, Olivia Dobrovosky provided the spark, pouring in 27 points overall, including a trio of 3-pointers. Chloe Metz provided some help, earning 12 points, while Maeve Canty had nine points and Olivia Navaroli had six points.
For the Bears, Mekenzie Dahlin had 18 points and five rebounds, with Cassidy Kelly getting 14 points, six rebounds and five assists. Shoemaker had 10 points, six rebounds, five assists and four steals.
Skaneateles went from here to Friday’s showdown with rival Marcellus, who was off to a 2-0 start. And just like the week before, a great victory was followed by a frustrating defeat, with the Lakers falling 70-52 to the Mustangs.
Things started fine, but a 12-8 Skaneateles lead vanished when Marcellus got red-hot in the second quarter, outscoring the visitors 26-10 to seize the lead.
To its credit, the Lakers did whittle the deficit to single digits before the fourth quarter, but the Mustangs still got away thanks to big efforts from Katie MacLachlan and Hannah Durand, who hit seven 3-pointers between them as MacLachlan had 22 points and Durand added 19 points.
By contrast, Dobrovosky never got into top gear, settling for 10 points, a number Metz and Maddy Ramsgard matched as Kate Aberi contributed eight points. At 2-2 on the season, Skaneateles would travel to Phoenix on Tuesday for its lone game this week.
