With all of its home matches in the books for 2019, the Cazenovia field hockey team would spend the last two weeks of the regular season engaged in practice and testing itself with trips to face some of the area’s large-school powers.
First on that agenda was last Monday’s trip to Liverpool, and it was impressive for the Lakers on many fronts as it played superb defense and got some unlikely contributions in a 2-0 shutout of the Warriors.
Neither senior Peyton Clarke nor junior Maddie Young appear among Cazenovia’s top scoring threats, serving instead as anchors on the Lakers’ back line.
Yet it was Clarke and Young notching the goals against Liverpool, more than enough as they also defended quite well, rarely letting the Warriors earn many open looks.
Cazenovia looked to keep this up in Thursday night’s game at East Syracuse Minoa, and it led early, but had to withstand a furious Spartans charge throughout the game’s late stages and somehow finished with a 1-1 draw.
Though it rarely had chances, the Lakers cashed in one of them in the first half as Clarke, taking a pass from Ava Hartley, put a shot past ESM goalie Maura Leib.
From there, it turned into one long battle to hang on. Yet Cazenovia’s defense only cracked once as Olivia Grabowski converted in the second half.
Through the rest of regulation, plus a six-on-six OT period, the Lakers kept turning back attempts, and Mackenzie Halliday was superb, stopping nine of the 10 shots she faced.
Now with a record of 7-5-2, Cazenovia would go to Port Byron/Union Springs next Wednesday and, two days later, go to Fayetteville-Manlius to face the Salt City Athletic Conference-leading Hornets.
