Geddes — Ryan Blackwell said that his Liverpool boys basketball team is having fun and staying loose while still managing to work hard at all phases of the game – and it’s showing.

Never was the Warriors’ capacity for both work and fun on more vivid display than in Sunday night’s 83-64 conquest of Bishop Ludden in the final of the Gaelic Knights’ own Rosemary Corcoran Holiday Classic.

Start to finish, Liverpool was in total command, with Tyler Sullivan and Nate Cutler hitting a barrage of 3-pointers to build an early margin, and the Warriors’ defense squaring up in the second half to make sure that Ludden could not mount a comeback.

“From the start of the tournament, we were all locked in,” said Sullivan.

Going into the game, Ludden held an unbeaten (6-0) mark, a no. 21 state Class AA ranking and had just returned several key players, including guard Mika Adams-Woods, from brief suspensions served earlier in the month.

Liverpool was riding a four-game win streak and had not yet cracked the state rankings, but at 7-1 carried a confident tone that was established right from the opening tip-off.

It took just 90 seconds for the Warriors to go up 9-0 on Ludden, keyed by 3-pointers from Nate Cutler and Will Cutler.

Sullivan waited until the midway point of the first quarter to get on the board – but once he got going, he landed 14 first-half points, most of it from shots beyond the arc as Liverpool connected seven times on 3-pointers while racing to a 47-32 halftime lead.

But the success went beyond the usual stars. When forwards Naj Johnson and Cooper Chaffee went to the bench with two fouls apiece in the first half, the bench stepped up, especially Devan Mederios, who burned Ludden for 10 points in the first half alone.

continued — Though the game’s pace slowed down in the third quarter, Liverpool extended its lead. It did so by mixing up man-to-man and zone defenses to force the Gaelic Knights into outside shots and tightening up its work on the boards, too.

Meanwhile, Sullivan, on his way to tournament MVP honors, had 12 more points in that period on his way to a game-high total of 29 points, the Warriors’ lead growing to 30 before Ludden made up some of the margin against Liverpool’s reserves.

Nate Cutler finished with 20 points as Will Cutler gained 11 points. Adams-Woods paced Ludden with just 13 points, but joined Sullivan, Mederios and Nate Cutler on the All-Tournament team.

In the tournament’s opening round Saturday night, Ludden beat New Hartford 60-43, led by Adams-Woods’ 20 points, this after Liverpool survived a tough challenge from Troy (Section II) and beat the Flying Horses 74-66.

Having won its previous four games by double digits, the Warriors found Troy far more of a challenge, nearly squandering a big first-half lead as it went to the break up 34-30.

Gradually, Liverpool restored its margin against the Flying Horses in the third quarter and held on as it got 23 points from Sullivan, but also saw Mederios contribute big minutes off the bench (just as he would against Ludden) and earn 16 points. Johnson got 14 points and Nate Cutler added 11 points.

This tournament victory is just the start of the Warriors’ toughest regular-season stretch, which continues Saturday at Rochester Aquinas and, next week, includes a visit from defending Section III Class AA champion Henninger and a trip to West Genesee.

“From what I’ve seen, if we keep playing together at a high level, we can win a championship,” said Ryan Blackwell.