Maybe it was supposed to turn out this way for he Liverpool football team – that, in order to end a 16-year wait of returning to the Section III Class AA championship game, it would have to conquer both of its neighborhood rivals in consecutive weeks, and in consecutive playoff rounds.
All that the Warriors’ 46-13 romp over Cicero-North Syracuse at LHS Stadium on Friday night guaranteed was that Liverpool would stay undefeated and that, in the semifinals, it would have to get past long-time nemesis Baldwinsville, who knocked out defending champion CBA 28-20 in its opening-round game.
It was tempting to look ahead, even before Liverpool and C-NS kicked off. Finally, the Warriors’ win streak had merited a spot in the state Class AA rankings, at no. 21, and while largely symbolic, the recognition signaled an increased respect for what it had done to go 7-0 during the regular season.
Now, not only was it facing a Northstars side it beat 39-12 in the “Star Wars Cup” game a month earlier, it also was dealing with an opponent going through quarterback issues.
Injuries to Dom Fiorini and Connor Evans had forced C-NS to turn to eighth-grader Conner Hayes late in the season, though Evans was back in the lineup for this game.
Before Evans even took the field, though, Liverpool had a 7-0 lead. Jaydakis Scott, who had burned the Northstars for 309 yards in late September, took off on a 50-yard sprint that set up quarterback Ricky Sisto’s one-yard touchdown sneak.
So began a first half dominated by Liverpool in all three phases of the game. Not only was it moving the ball at will and making clutch defensive stops, its special teams took advantage of a pair of crucial C-NS mistakes.
A muffed punt late in the first quarter led to a short field and Scott’s second TD, on a 10-yard run. Then, when C=NS fumbled on the ensuing kickoff, Sisto pounced, throwing a slant pass to Joe Scro over the middle that turned into a 35-yard TD just 58 seconds after Scott found the end zone.
Stung by that outburst, C-NS remained quiet the rest of the half, too, and when Scott, who gained 160 yards on 14 carries, scored for a third time from four yards out, that made it 26-0 going to halftime.
Only in the third quarter did the Northstars get on the board, thaks to Nick Golembieski’s TD run. But Liverpool didn’t take kindly to this, answering when Rashon Crenshaw scored on a 34-yard run.
Not done yet, Crenshaw added a TD on a 47-yard run early in the fourth quarter, with Jonathan Stewart contributing a 41-yard scoring run in the waning moments. Ryan Cummings was accountable for C-NS’s other touchdown on a three-yard run.
Liverpool is sure to get a bigger challenge from B’ville, who was no. 22 in the state AA rankings before getting that playoff win over CBA, when they square off Saturday at C-NS’s Bragman Stadium.
These sides normally meet each year, yet in 2014 the Warriors and Bees spent the regular season apart (they did scrimmage each other in August) due to league realignments.
But fate, and a lot of good play, has made a Liverpool-B’ville reunion one full of massive stakes – namely, a trip to the Carrier Dome to play for a sectional title on Nov. 9 against Henninger or Auburn.
