For a full year, the Cicero-North Syracuse girls basketball team had worked toward returning to the Carrier Dome and getting another shot at taking the Section III Class AA championship back from West Genesee.
Yet it only took a few minutes for the Northstars’ work to get undone by the Wildcats, whose dominance of the second quarter made the difference as it prevailed 62-48 for a sectional three-peat.
This wasn’t as close as the 2018 sectional final, nor was it as tightly contested as the two regular-season games they played, the road team prevailing on each occasion.
In both of those contests, C-NS sophomore forward Jessica Cook had her way in the paint, especially in the 56-45 win in Camillus Jan. 15 where she finished with 21 points and 16 rebounds.
So WG was determined, from the opening tip of the sectional final, to deny Cook the ball. This meant double teams, with Kaitlyn Walker getting help from a rotation of players who harassed her.
Initially, C-NS was able to take advantage of this situation. A trio of 3-pointers, two of them by Alexandra Miller, helped the Northstars lead through most of a first quarter that ended in a 15-15 tie.
Meanwhile, the Northstars, as it had done so many times before, focused its defense on trying to contain WG’s potent sister duo of Mackenzie and Madison Smith.
Ignoring his, Mackenzie Smith netted 11 points in the first quarter, and once her teammates started to flourish in the second period, the Wildcats took over the game.
Swarming defense on one end led to extra possessions on the other end, and the Wildcats were hot from the perimeter, hitting six 3-pointers in the first half.
The combination of all this led to a 20-2 run, capped when Madison Smith caught and shot a jumper at the horn that left C-NS staring at a 35-17 halftime deficit.
For a moment, it looked like the Northstars could catch up. It opened the third quarter with an 11-2 push to whittle the Wildcats’ margin to single digits.
However, WG senior guard Aleysha Castanon landed a decisive blow when she converted back-to-back 3-pointers to stop that run, then added another 3-pointer before the period ended.
All of Castanon’s 15 points came from five 3-pointers, which complemented Mackenzie Smith’s 23 points. Both topped Julia Rowe, who led C-NS with 12 points, with Miller adding 10 points and Morgan Siechen 11 points as Cook was held to nine points.
The Northstars finished its season 17-5, and have four seniors – Siechen, Aniah Ingram, Brandi Feeney and Isabella Kingsley – graduate. However, Cook, Rowe, Miller and Mackenzie White form a strong returning core of players for 2019-20, where again C-NS looks to reach the top.
