Even as it sits at 20-1 on the season, the Baldwinsville girls basketball team understands that it will take a 21st victory to find total satisfaction- and end the program’s 25-year championship drought.
The Bees earned that opportunity by defeating no. 5 seed Rome Free Academy in Sunday’s sectional Class AA semifinal at SRC Arena, using a series of timely spurts and well-balanced scoring to put away the Black Knights 68-57.
This advanced B’ville to Saturday’s sectional title game against no. 2 seed Cicero-North Syracuse, who handed the Bees its lone defeat of the season in January and handled West Genesee 57-32 in the other semifinal.
As much as RFA posed a challenge for the Bees, the bigger hurdle, and larger question, was how B’ville would fare after a break of more than two weeks since it beat C-NS in the Feb. 13 regular-season finale.
But it took less than 90 seconds for the Bees to get on the board with Katie Pascale’s 3-pointer, and though the Black Knights pressured hard early and twice went in front in the first five minutes, the quick pace was just what B’ville needed.
Fueled by nine points from Ola Bednarczyk, the Bees closed the first quarter with a 14-6 run and stretched its margin to 24-13 early in the second quarter, only to have the Black Knights counter with a 10-0 spurt of its own to catch up.
A big sequence came late in the second quarter. In a span of less than 40 seconds, B’ville got (1) a 3-pointer from Jordan Roy, (2) another 3-pointer, from Bednarczyk and (3) a steal and layup from Hannah Mimas.
That accounted for most of the Bees’ 36-27 halftime lead, and when it scored the first six points of the third quarter, it amounted to a 14-2 stretch, and for the rest of the game RFA would try and chase B’ville down.
Several Bees struck for timely baskets late in the period when RFA pared the margin to single digits. First it was a 3-pointer from Bednarczyk, then it was back-to-back baskets from Mimas and Kyrah Wilbur that sparked a 10-0 run that extended into the fourth quarter.
Even with all this, the Black Knights surged again, pulling within nine, 59-50, midway through the final period, and it took another pair of 3-pointers from Bednarczyk and Sydney Huhtala to put the game away.
Bednarczyk, who finished with 21 points, was one of four Bees to hit double figures. Huhtala gained 15 points, while Wilbur produced 12 points and Mimas gained 10 points. Tailyn Frost paced RFA with a game-high 22 points.
Unlike the semifinals, the title game between B’ville and C-NS will take place at adjacent Allyn Hall, tipping off at 5 p.m., three hours before the boys Bees meet Corcoran in its sectional AA final.
