Maybe there are instances where the worst possible scenario for a team is facing an opponent it has already beaten.
If so, a prime example would be what happened to the Skaneateles girls basketball team as it was ousted, 69-30, by Westhill in Tuesday night’s Section III Class B quarterfinal.
The lopsided margin would suggest that the Lakers were not at the same level as the Warriors, and that was true now – but that wasn’t the case when the season got underway.
Way back on Nov. 28, Skaneateles rose up and stunned Westhill 53-47, ending a long losing streak against the traditionally powerful Warriors.
Granted, it was the season opener, and Westhill star Mackenzie Martin had only just returned from leading the girls volleyball Warriors to the state Class B title, but it still was a landmark win in Lakers program history.
Nearly three months had passed since that game, and Skaneateles was in its best form of the season, having won six in a row, including a 50-42 road win over no. 8 seed Adirondack in its sectional playoff opener Feb. 15.
However, Westhill had gone 18-2 since that defeat to the Lakers and snared the no. 1 seed for the sectional playoffs. Having knocked out Holland Patent 53-37, the Warriors were quite eager to exact revenge on Skaneateles.
It was 10-1 before the Lakers got its first field goal from Maeve Canty, which took more than five minutes. And though Skaneateles had cut its deficit to 15-10 early in the second quarter, that would be as close as it would get.
Westhill rattled off a 17-0 run that covered most of the rest of the half, and then added an 11-0 run, the margin growing to 55-18 by the end of the third quarter.
Olivia Dobrovosky, the Lakers’ all-time leading scorer, was held to six points as Canty led with eight points and Chloe Metz also got six points.
Meanwhile, the Warriors got 14 points and 14 rebounds from Martin, plus 18 points and 10 rebounds from Jenna Larrabee as Imani Watts hit five 3-pointers on her way to 16 points and Catherine Dadey added 11 points.
Skaneateles finished 13-7 in Jim Szalach’s first season as head coach. Dobrovosky and Metz graduate, as does Olivia Navaroli and Ryley Pas’cal, with Canty and Maddy Ramsgard leading the returning cast in 2019-20.
