CENTRAL NEW YORK – Coming off a 9-13 record of a season ago, the Cazenovia girls basketball team hoped to get to double-digit victories and maybe position itself well in a revamped Section III Class B ranks.
Of course, the Lakers’ opening assignment Wednesday was against a Class A opponent – Homer, who arrived at Buckley Gym and, by taking over late, prevailed by a score of 52-45.
They would go back and forth most of the night, Cazenovia leading early and the Trojans answering it, but the Lakers ultimately inching it way to a 36-35 advantage with one period left.
Led by Lauren Franco (18 points) and Anya Gofkowski (13 points), Homer outscored the Lakers 17-9 the rest of the way, in large part because no Cazenovia player equaled the production of Homer’s top two.
Still, it was a well-balanced Lakers attack, with Hayden Bubble and Ella Baker each getting 11 points ahead of the nine points from Jocelyn Szalach and seven points from Bess Johnson.
A night later, Chittenango began its season against Skaneateles, and would produce a lot in the game’s latter stages, but only after the Lakers built an insurmountable first-half margin on the way to prevailing 54-42.
The Bears trailed 38-11 at halftime, and only the great work of Abby Scheidelman, who had a game-high 20 points, made it tighter. Skaneateles spread it around with nine different scorers, none having more than Finn Pas’cal’s total of 14 points.
Cazenovia is on the road next week for back-to-back games against Solvay and Syracuse Academy of Science, while Chittenango’s lone action is a Tuesday-night home opener against Jamesville-DeWitt.
