LIVERPOOL – Through the entire course of its altered and abbreviated winter sports season, the Liverpool athletic department conducted hundreds of COVID-19 tests without a single positive case.
Then one was discovered last week, a single positive test on the 47-player Liverpool varsity football team which had shut out Nottingham 26-0 in its March 20 season opener.
As a result, the football Warriors were forced to the sidelines for a 10-day mandatory quarantine, costing it the opportunity to play Baldwinsville last weekend and Corcoran this Friday night.
If the quarantine is successful, practices can resume this Saturday in time for the long-awaited showdown between Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse on April 9 at Bragman Stadium.
C-NS was not affected by any of this, and after blanking B’ville 35-0 in its March 19 opener returned Friday night against Henninger at Sunnycrest Field and prevailed again, handling the Black Knights 41-6.
Maybe the best thing that could have happened to the Northstars was a first-quarter mistake by quarterback J.J. Razmovski as the Black Knights intercepted him and turned it into a touchdown.
Quickly responding, C-NS got in the end zone late in the period as La’Quan Lemon scored from four yards out, and then seized full control with 21 unanswered points in the second period.
Razmovski, from near midfield, went deep and found Matt Klamm for a 43-yard TD pass. Lemon returned to find the end zone again on a two-yard plunge, and Farouk Ibrahim scored for the first time this season on a 19-yard run.
Having missed his first extra point of the season after the opening TD, Josh Kubala converted on all three PATs following those scores, and the Northstars were up 27-6 on the Henninger at the break.
Ibrahim added a second TD on a three-yard run in the third quarter, and after the starters rested reserve quarterback Anthony Testa connected with Joe Penizotto on a fourth-quarter scoring pass.
C-NS is back at Bragman Stadium next Friday to host Nottingham. Game time is 6 p.m.
