From Cazenovia’s lakeside lacrosse field to a softball diamond in Liverpool, the next four weeks decide who carries the Section III banner to the state tournament. Here is who plays whom, when, and why it matters in the suburbs.
Truth-check: Frank Mahoney, Editor-in-Chief.
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Skaneateles boys lacrosse enters the Section III Class D bracket as the No. 1 seed for a postseason opening at home against No. 8 Tully at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 28. The Lakers do that with a target on their back: their cross-county rival, Marcellus, took the 2025 Class D crown by beating Skaneateles 11-10 in double overtime, then went on to repeat the next spring as champion. The two-time defending sectional champ sits at No. 2 in the same bracket, which means the path back to the title likely runs through both ends of the Skaneateles-Marcellus rivalry.
Lacrosse: the brackets to watch
Lacrosse drives Section III spring conversation, and 2026 is no different. The section released its boys and girls brackets the week of May 12, and the matchups confirm what coaches across Onondaga and Madison counties had been muttering since April: this is a year stacked in the small-school classes.
Start in Class D boys, where four of the eight seeded teams hail from suburban Onondaga County. Top-seeded Skaneateles opens against No. 8 Tully at home on Wednesday, May 28 at 6 p.m., while No. 7 Cazenovia travels to No. 2 Marcellus that same night at 7 p.m. The other quarterfinal pairings: No. 3 LaFayette/Onondaga Central hosts No. 6 South Jefferson at 5 p.m., and No. 5 Lowville plays at No. 4 General Brown at 7 p.m. A Marcellus advance to the final would set up a 2025 rematch with the Lakers, and a Cazenovia upset of Marcellus would put the Wildcats back in a semifinal for the first time since the program’s deep 2022 run.
In Class A girls, the bracket reads like a list of every big-population suburb in Onondaga County. Cicero-North Syracuse drew the No. 1 seed, Fayetteville-Manlius is No. 2, West Genesee is No. 3, Baldwinsville is No. 4, Liverpool No. 5, Rome Free Academy No. 6 and Syracuse No. 7. West Genesee hosts RFA on Tuesday, May 27, and No. 7 Syracuse travels to No. 2 Fayetteville-Manlius the same night. Camillus and Manlius are the home venues to circle.
The Class D girls bracket is just as Onondaga-and-Madison-heavy. No. 1 South Jefferson hosts No. 8 Clinton, No. 4 Marcellus hosts No. 5 General Brown, No. 3 Westhill hosts No. 6 Cazenovia, and No. 2 Skaneateles hosts No. 7 Jordan-Elbridge, all on Tuesday, May 27 at 6 p.m. Skaneateles arrives at the bracket as a serial section champion in the small-school girls field. The Lakers won the 2025 Class D girls title 8-7 over South Jefferson at SUNY Cortland, the program’s third consecutive sectional crown, and the senior-led core that beat South Jeff returns the bulk of its scoring.
In Class A boys, West Genesee continues the program’s run as Section III’s flagship public school. The Wildcats won the 2025 Section III Class A title from Cicero-North Syracuse High School in a comeback over Baldwinsville, then took an unbeaten 18-0 record into the subregional before falling short of a state crown. West Genesee, based in Camillus, returns key contributors from that group and has been ranked nationally inside the public-school top 25 by USA Lacrosse during the regular season.
Baseball and softball seeds
Baseball and softball brackets in Section III run on a similar mid-May seeding calendar. The defending state tournament structure helps frame the stakes: Binghamton is hosting the statewide softball championship through the 2026, 2027 and 2028 tournaments, and the 2026 NYSPHSAA baseball championships, presented by Visions FCU, will play in the greater Binghamton area on Friday, June 12 and Saturday, June 13. That gives the Section III bracket winners roughly two weeks between sectional finals and a state quarterfinal.
In recent springs, Class AA softball in Section III has been a Liverpool-Cicero-North Syracuse-Baldwinsville cluster. In the most recent Section III softball playoff cycle, No. 1 Liverpool defeated No. 2 Cicero-North Syracuse 8-7, while No. 2 Cicero-North Syracuse had earlier beaten No. 3 Baldwinsville 8-5. All three of those programs are running it back in 2026.
The structural calendar is built around Memorial Day. Section III sectional finals for baseball and softball traditionally run in the last weekend of May and the first weekend of June, with state regionals the week after and the state tournament closing in Binghamton on June 12 and June 13. Coaches in Camillus and Cicero have been pointing their teams at those dates since opening day.
Track and field section meet
Section III’s outdoor track and field calendar peaks just before lacrosse sectional semifinals. Cicero-North Syracuse is the recent reigning power in Class AAA indoor sectionals, with the outdoor squads regularly carrying through. The Cicero-North Syracuse girls won the most recent Class AA sectional track and field championship reported on the program’s athletic page, and the program is again expected to challenge for the team title.
The sectional meet is the gateway. Whoever places in the top three in an event at sectionals earns a slot at the state qualifier, then the state outdoor meet, which closes the spring track calendar in early June. Distance, sprints and field events all have local depth: F-M historically produces national-class distance runners; Liverpool and Baldwinsville have outsized rosters that scale across every event group.
Tennis and golf
Boys tennis runs through Section III in the spring, with team and individual sectional championships clustered into mid- and late May before the state individual tournament. The depth in Section III boys tennis lives in the F-M, J-D, CBA and Marcellus programs. Girls tennis is the fall counterpart and is not in season now.
Boys golf is also a spring sport in New York high schools, and Section III’s championship leans on courses in the Onondaga and Madison County belt. The state final, run by NYSPHSAA, follows shortly after the sectional. Local pull-throughs to states have included programs in the Skaneateles, Westhill and Fayetteville-Manlius lineups in recent springs.
Where to watch
Most Section III postseason lacrosse games are streamed on NFHS Network, which holds the live-video rights for NYSPHSAA Section III events. Quarterfinal hosts include Skaneateles, Marcellus, Westhill and General Brown for Class D boys and girls, plus West Genesee and Fayetteville-Manlius for the Class A girls round. Tickets at the gate run roughly $5 per adult for sectional games, with semifinals and finals priced slightly higher at neutral sites.
Sectional finals for lacrosse will move to neutral venues. Cicero-North Syracuse has hosted the Class A boys final in the past two seasons, and SUNY Cortland’s stadium has been the recent sectional and state final venue for girls lacrosse. The state weekend is split: the boys lacrosse state final is at Hobart William Smith Colleges in Geneva, and the girls state lacrosse semifinals and final are at SUNY Cortland in mid-June.
What’s at stake
For Skaneateles boys lacrosse, the season is about ending a 12-month wait. A year ago the Lakers fell to Marcellus 11-10 in double overtime in the Class D final, a sectional title they had been favored to win. The roster reloaded over the winter, and the program’s seed reflects regular-season dominance over almost everyone except Marcellus. For Marcellus, the season is about a three-peat in Class D. The Mustangs won the program’s second straight Section III Class D crown in 2025 with a 17-1 beating of Westhill at Fayetteville-Manlius High School, and the bracket draw keeps them on the opposite side from Skaneateles until the final.
For Cazenovia boys lacrosse, the bracket is about turning a long-standing program into a sectional contender again. The Lakers were a Class D finalist in 2022, denied that title by LaFayette/Onondaga Central, and a quarterfinal win at Marcellus would put the program back in a semifinal for the first time since that run. Cazenovia Central School District lists boys lacrosse among its varsity programs alongside golf, tennis, baseball, softball and track in its official athletics directory.
For West Genesee boys lacrosse, the season is the latest installment of the most decorated public-school lacrosse program in upstate New York. The Wildcats finished 2025 unbeaten in sectional play, then lost the state Class A final after winning the sectional. The Camillus program operates out of West Genesee High School and a community feeder system that funnels into the varsity by ninth grade. The bracket has West Genesee positioned, again, to hold the Class A bench.
For Skaneateles girls lacrosse, the bracket is about extending one of the longest active runs in Section III. The Lakers have reached 18 straight sectional finals in girls lacrosse heading into the 2026 bracket, and the 2025 champion roster only loses a handful of seniors. The No. 2 seed in Class D is the price the Lakers pay for South Jefferson’s strength, not for any weakness in the Skaneateles core.
For Fayetteville-Manlius girls lacrosse, the season is about closing the gap with Cicero-North Syracuse and West Genesee. The Hornets, based in Manlius, sit at No. 2 in Class A and are MaxPreps-tracked as one of the higher-ranked girls lacrosse programs in upstate New York. A Tuesday home quarterfinal against No. 7 Syracuse is the kind of game F-M usually wins decisively.
And for Marcellus girls lacrosse, the No. 4 seed in Class D is a chance to crash the Skaneateles party. Marcellus and Skaneateles both moved through the early-May portion of the schedule by handling Jordan-Elbridge, and a deep Marcellus run would put a fascinating all-Onondaga County semifinal on the board.
The 2026 Section III spring postseason starts in earnest on the night of Tuesday, May 27, with seven girls lacrosse games. By the night of Saturday, June 14, a Section III school could be holding a state championship trophy. Two-and-a-half weeks of suburban high school sport. That is the calendar. Now the games.
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