One giant obstacle had fallen, but another remained if the Bishop Grimes girls basketball team wanted to secure the Section III Class B championship.
And the Cobras would find that, in Sunday’s sectional final at Onondaga Community College’s Allyn Hall, top-seeded Bishop Ludden would not step aside in the way that its neighbors from Westhill had done a week earlier.
Instead, the Gaelic Knights put on a game-long defensive clinic, frustrating Grimes into ultimate submission in a 56-26 decision that ended Ludden’s own 11-year sectional title drought.
There was reason to think that Grimes could make Ludden worry, for it had done so in their lone regular-season meeting at East Syracuse on Feb.9, the Gaelic Knights prevailing 51-45 only after the Cobras saw a frantic late comeback fall short.
As they met again, with both of them coming off narrow sectional semifinal wins (Grimes over Westhill, Ludden over South Jefferson), the Cobras knew it would need more big numbers from forward Azariah Wade, who was playing with a mask due to an injury suffered in the Westhill game.
At the same time, the defense would focus its energies on making sure Ludden’s newly-minted all-time leading scorer, Danielle Rauch, didn’t put up her own big numbers. She didn’t – but she didn’t have, to either.
Before it got started, the two sides had to wait out a sectional Class C final between Thousand Islands and Syracuse Academy of Science that stretched out to three overtimes before the Vikings pulled it out, 54-52.
The long delay before the scheduled tip-off affected both sides, at least at the outset. Wade did manage six points, but her teammates’ outside shots were well off target, and Ludden wasn’t much better, the game tied 8-8 after one quarter.
It was here, though, that Ludden unleashed its full-court pressure, intending to keep Grimes from getting the ball inside to Wade, and it worked to perfection.
Thanks to a series of steals and other forced turnovers, the Gaelic Knights held the Cobras to just two field goals in the second quarter and steadily built a 26-14 lead by halftime.
Continuing to apply suffocating pressure every time Grimes had the ball, Ludden settled matters in the third quarter, outscoring the Cobras 22-5 to make it a combined 40-11 run over the course of the middle periods.
Rauch finished with 15 points, but her all-around contributions remained substantial, and she had plenty of help. Laura Patulski got 12 points and Meg Sierotnik got into double figures, too, with 11 points, while Aurora Deshaies, shut out in the South Jefferson game, had seven points.
Wade, forced into foul trouble, had just four points after the first quarter and 10 overall, and Abby Wilkinson, whose late free throws had won the Westhill game, was held without a field goal. Brianna Squier had five points and Jenna Sloan got six points from a pair of late 3-pointers.
So a 20-4 season came to an end for Grimes, who will see its top defensive player, Molly McInerney, graduate, but could return every other starter (Wade, Squier, Wilkinson and Maria Naylor) next winter, along with a deep bench that makes another title run quite possible.
