Through plenty of hard work and improvement throughout the autumn, the Cazenovia field hockey team managed to earn a share of the Onondaga High School League regular-season championship.

At 6-1-1 in league play, the Lakers finished with the same league mark as Weedsport, getting to that plateau last Wednesday afternoon when it fought through the rain and defeated Port Byron/Union Springs 3-1.

Controlling most of the flow of play, Cazenovia took 18 shots to the Panthers’ four, and two of them by Caitlin Lounsbury went in as Peyton Clarke also contributed to the scoring column.

Then, on Friday afternoon, Cazenovia faced Fayetteville-Manlius, the regular-season champions in the Salt City Athletic Conference, and took a 2-0 defeat to the Hornets.

Though there were stretches where the Lakers’ defense did make key stops, F-M did break through with goals from Lucy Fowler and Sofia Melfi, with Nora Wilson adding an assist.

When the Section III Class C playoff pairings were announced, the Lakers, with an overall record of 8-6-2, drew the no. 4 seed in a six-team field.

In Wednesday’s opening-round game, Cazenovia hosts no. 5 seed Mount Markham, the winner to advance to Sunday’s semifinal against top seed Camden at 3 p.m. at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill. Clinton is the no. 2 seed, and will play in the other semifinal Sunday against the winner of Tuesday’s game between no. 3 seed VVS and no. 6 seed Canastota.