Forget the record it sports, or what happened in the regular season. The Liverpool girls basketball team is confident that it can conquer West Genesee with a Section III Class AA championship on the line.
“We’re ready to battle (with the Wildcats),” said head coach Matt Brazill. “We’re due to beat them.”
That was the Warriors’ mantra in the wake of Sunday night’s 59-50 victory over Central Square in the sectional semifinals at SRC Arena, where a close, tense battle broke open in the fourth quarter thanks to the trio of Kyra Grimshaw, Jenna Wike and Breanna Socker.
Though Central Square had mostly faced Class A foes this winter in the OHSL Freedom division, it proved that it belonged with the AA sides throughout this game, requiring the Warriors to constantly answer the Redhawks and then, down the stretch, deliver big baskets.
Up 15-10 early in the second quarter, Liverpool saw Central Square go on a 10-0 run. That included 3-pointers by Breanna Ransom and Maddie Besaw, and the Redhawks would connect four times beyond the arc in that period as Besaw’s second trey inched her side to a 27-25 halftime lead.
They continued to go back and forth in the third quarter, with four lead changes. Socker’s pair of baskets pushed Liverpool in front, and later in the period Wike netted five points to counter the work of Central Square eighth-grader Julia Mann, who had five of her team-high 16 points in that frame.
The Warriors still trailed by one, 36-35, going to the fourth quarter. Brazill said that he sensed his team’s nerves and told them to remember what the Liverpool boys basketball team had done the day before, using a strong fourth quarter to defeat Bishop Ludden in its sectional semifinal.
That seemed to work, because Grimshaw promptly scored five straight points to give Liverpool a lead it would not relinquish. Of Grimshaw’s game-high 20 points, 10 of them would come in the final period, and she said her hard work and chemistry with Wike, who finished with 14 points, keyed her efforts.
When Central Square threatened to stay close, Socker hit a big 3-pointer with 5:30 left and converting on a runner two minutes later to make it 52-44, close to the ultimate final margin. Socker finished the night with 16 points.
“(Breanna) is our senior leader,” said Brazill. “She stepped up and made some big shots.”
This win put Liverpool two-thirds of the way to a sweep of all three of the top seeds of the sectional tournament. First, the Warriors went to no. 3 seed Fayetteville-Manlius and prevailed 48-33 over the Hornets. Then it got past Central Square in the semifinals.
Now West Genesee, the top seed, awaits in Saturday’s final at noon at Onondaga Community College’s Allyn Hall. The Wildcats routed Cicero-North Syracuse 53-25 and, like Liverpool, needed a strong fourth quarter to get away from Utica Proctor in its semifinal to prevail 60-49.
In those regular-season meetings, WG prevailed 60-46 at home on Jan. 24 and 58-46 two weeks later at Liverpool, but as Brazill pointed out, the Warriors only trailed by four in the fourth quarter of the rematch before the Wildcats got away.
It was all part of a brutal schedule Liverpool undertook, one that led to a 9-10 record before the sectional playoffs started. All of those tests, though, have made the Warriors strong enough to think that, given a third chance to upend WG, it can do so and earn a first sectional title since 2007.
