Manlius — Back on Dec. 28, when the West Genesee girls basketball team took a defeat to Fayetteville-Manlius at SRC Arena, it could not foresee that a return to that floor for the Section III Class AA semifinals would depend on reversing that result.
Yet that is exactly what happened Wednesday night, when the no. 7 seed Wildcats built up a big second-quarter lead and then held on late to beat the no. 2 seed Hornets 465-41 in order to set up a semifinal date with no. 6 seed Liverpool Sunday night after the Warriors went on the road to beat no. 3 seed Baldwinsville 69-59.
In reality, all of these seeds were a bit illusory. In the case of WG and F-M, they had split in the regular season, for while the Hornets did win that 48-38 game at Onondaga Community College in the Hoops For the Hospital Classic during the holiday break, the Wildcats had turned it around and prevailed 55-47 in Camillus on Jan. 22.
For this third and most important encounter, WG went right after F-M forward Lizzie Hall, forcing her to pick up her third foul late in the first quarter. And though the Hornets still tied it, 9-9, on Carly Assimon’s 3-pointer at the end of the period, but were in long-term trouble.
Without Hall to worry about, WG did whatever it wanted in the second quarter, from back-to-back 3-pointers by Sierra Smith to inside baskets by Madison Smith, all of it resulting in a 19-2 blitz that created a 28-11 margin going into halftime.
Every bit of that lead was required, for the Wildcats knew F-M would fight back. Sure enough, the Hornets whittled into its deficit throughout the third quarter, led by D’Jhai Patterson-Ricks, who finished with 16 points, and Abbey Harris, who added 12 points.
continued — Still up 39-30 deep into the fourth quarter, WG went cold, and F-M again charged. When Patterson-Ricks hit a basket with less than two minutes left, the Wildcats’ lead was down to two, 43-41.
After Camryn Chawgo missed two free throws with 39.7 seconds left, the Hornets had a chance to tie in the last minute, but missed. Chawgo was fouled again with 15.2 seconds to play, and this time went one-for-two at the line, extending WG’s margin to three, 44-41.
One more time, the Wildcats’ defense stood up, forcing an F-M turnover and then hitting the free throws to clinch it seconds later. For the night, Madison Smith had 15 points, with Sierra Smith and Mackenzie Smith earning 11 points apiece.
Now WG will get Liverpool, a team it beat twice in the regular season, by margins of 48-41 on Jan. 8 and 50-48 a month later. The game tips off Sunday at 7:15 at SRC Arena, with the winner coming back a week later for the sectional final against Cicero-North Syracuse or Utica Proctor.
