Onondaga — Tyler Sullivan wanted to make absolutely sure that his last high school basketball memory was not the sight of his Liverpool boys basketball team surrendering an 11-point lead late in regulation of Saturday night’s Section III Class AA semifinal against Corcoran at SRC Arena.
So Sullivan did something about it, hitting a pair of crucial baskets in overtime and helping the top-seeded Warriors fight past the no. 4 seed Cougars 84-77 to earn a date in next Saturday night’s AA title game against Bishop Ludden.
That it even got to OT was far from the collective minds of the Warriors when, with less than three minutes to play in the fourth quarter, it was in front of Corcoran 66-55.
Then Corcoran’s Marquis Gilbert, who scored 38 points when the Cougars beat Liverpool 81-72 on Jan. 27 but was well-contained for most of this night, hit a pair of 3-pointers that, with a Warriors miss sandwiched in between, began an unlikely comeback.
Liverpool still led 68-62 when Gilbert, from well beyond the 3-point mark, connected again with less than a minute to play. Sullivan made two free throws, but then Tim Tatum’s steal, lay-up and free throw shrank the Warriors’ margin to 70-68 with 27.1 seconds to play.
Again, Sullivan was fouled. This time, though, on the front end of a one-and-one, Sullivan missed, and Corcoran, with a chance to tie or win it, called time-out.
With the Warriors all over Gilbert to prevent a possible winning 3-pointer, the Cougars instead pushed it inside to Jahaad Henry, who hit the tying lay-up with seven seconds left.
Still, Liverpool could win it in regulation, and Sullivan got the ball, but facing a double team, his running jumper went off the rim and the horn sounded. Remarkably, Corcoran had made a 15-4 run in the last 2:12 and had forced overtime.
continued — Warriors head coach Ryan Blackwell said that, in the huddle before OT, he told his players that they were still in great shape, a positive message that belied the way things had gone late in the fourth quarter. Not only had Liverpool blown a double-digit lead, two of its starting forwards, Naz Johnson and Cooper Chaffee, had fouled out.
More important, perhaps, was the message Sullivan gave to his teammates. He said that he implored them to “play hard now, or we’re not coming back next weekend.”
The Warriors listened, and Sullivan sparked them with a three-point play less than 30 seconds into the extra period, which gave Liverpool back the lead, this time for keeps.
Liverpool’s defense didn’t allow a single field goal in the OT, Corcoran only managing to hit seven free throws and miss several other attempts.
Finishing his night with 27 points, Sullivan hit another big basket with 1:06 left in the OT to make it 80-73, and Devan Mederios hit three important free throws to seal it, giving him 12 points to match Johnson’s total as Will Cutler had 18 points and Nate Cutler added nine points.
Gilbert’s late barrage accounted for most of his 24 points as Henry got 19 points and Tatum 16 points. Despite their production, the Warriors took the lead late in the first quarter and fought off numerous Corcoran rallies before it did catch up late in regulation.
Just to get to that battle with the Cougars, Liverpool had to first work its way past no. 8 seed Fayetteville-Manlius in last Tuesday night’s Class AA quarterfinal – which it did with relative ease, counting on a barrage of 3-pointers to knock out the Hornets 76-59.
Though the game was closer than the 86-53 Warriors romp of two weeks earlier, Liverpool still found it easy to get open looks against F-M’s porous defense and convert them, over and over, especially during the first half.
continued — Determined to slow down the game’s tempo, F-M actually found success with it in the first three minutes and took a 6-2 lead, but from there Liverpool took off, outscoring the Hornets 25-4 the rest of the quarter to take control for good.
And any time F-M tried to climb back, the Warriors answered, normally with a shot from beyond the arc. In fact, during the first half, Liverpool hit on nine 3-pointers, accounting for most of its 48-23 margin at intermission, and eventually finished with 12 treys for the night.
The trio of Sullivan (17 points), Nate Cutler (14 points) and Will Cutler (13 points) combined for nine of the team’s 12 3-pointers, while Johnson finished with 10 points.
F-M did play a solid second half, but it proved too late. Jawaan Crouch had 14 points, five rebounds and three assists, while Fernando Johnson had 12 points, but no one else had more than the seven points put up by Josh Loeffler as Ryan Miller contributed six points.
Corcoran fell next, and once that drama was done, attention now turned to Liverpool against Bishop Ludden, who survived its own tense AA semifinal to knock off defending champion Henninger 56-54 and return to SRC Arena for next Saturday’s 6:30 title game.
The Warriors beat the Gaelic Knights 83-64 on Dec. 27 in the finals of the Gaelic Knights’ own Rosemary Corcoran Holiday Classic, and if it can repeat that effort, the program’s first sectional title since 1999 could await them.
“I feel great for the kids to have this chance,” said Blackwell. “I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
