CENTRAL NEW YORK – A season-opening defeat to Homer on Nov. 30 did not linger too long for the Cazenovia girls basketball team as it began a busy December slate.

In fact, when the Lakers took on Solvay last Monday night, it played smothering defense, shutting down close to the entire Bearcats lineup on the way to a 46-15 victory.

Neither side did much in the first half, Cazenovia only up 14-8 at the break, but then it caught fire in the third quarter, scoring 28 points in that frame to triple its total and put Solvay away.

In fact, outside of Ciara Togni’s 11 points, only one Bearcats player, Janiya Walters, even had a field goal, and Ella Baker outscored Solvay by herself, finishing with 16 points and eight rebounds.

Jocelyn Szalach notched six steals and four rebounds to go with her 10 points, while Hayden Bubble finished with eight points and Bess Johnson gained seven points.

On Thursday night, Cazenovia was scheduled to play at Syracuse Academy of Science, but it got postponed, the Lakers having to wait to return to action for games this week against LaFayette and its namesakes from Skaneateles.

In its only action last week, Chittenango ran straight into Jamesville-DeWitt and struggled to produce much in a 50-25 defeat to the Red Rams.

Still, the Bears did lead early, going up 8-6 after one period before J-D took over with a dominant run that covered the entire second and third periods and saw the Rams outscore Chittenango 35-7.

Abby Scheidelman did manage 10 points, with Dominique Brown picking up 14 rebounds and Isabelle Damon six rebounds, but J-D saw Ava Sandroni nearly equal the Bears by herself, scoring 23 points with help from Merris Kessler’s eight points. Chittenango visits Bishop Grimes and Homer this week.