What the Liverpool girls basketball team returned to at the outset of the 2016-17 season was something new and exciting.

For much of the last decade, all efforts by the field in the Section III Class AA ranks proved futile in containing Cicero-North Syracuse, both during and after the Breanna Stewart years. It amounted to eight consecutive sectional titles.

But with four starters graduated from 2015-16 (including Makayla Roberts, thriving as a true freshman at Le Moyne College) and the other, Amani Free, transferring to Long Island Lutheran, the Northstars are starting over, and the challengers are hungry to pounce – including the Warriors.

A season ago, Liverpool reached the sectional AA semifinals before falling to West Genesee. But while head coach Matt Brazill lost eight seniors from that squad, some of his best players return, including the junior trio of Kyra Grimshaw, Jenna Wike and Holly Sleeth.

Together, they would lead the Warriors into its season opener last Thursday against Gulf Coast High School, a team from Naples, Florida visiting Central New York and playing a series of games against local foes, including Liverpool and Fayetteville-Manlius on consecutive nights.

Gulf Coast prevailed, 68-52, but the game wasn’t as lopsided as the final score. In fact, it was 14-14 after one period, and over the course of the second and third periods, every time the Sharks tried to pull away, Liverpool made a run of its own.

Finally, the Warriors succumbed to a 25-15 push by the Sharks in the fourth quarter, but not before Grimshaw put together a breakout performance of 21 points and 13 rebounds, with Wike adding 16 points and four rebounds. Sleeth got 11 points, three assists, three steals and two rebounds.

Another week of practice follows before Liverpool visits Utica Proctor this Friday night, two days after C-NS debuts its new-look lineup against Fulton.