It will be a big occasion on Friday night, when the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse basketball teams get together for a girls/boys doubleheader.
Liverpool is using the occasion to honor its 2017 state Class AA championship baseball team with a ceremony where championship rings will be handed out to the players and coaches.
The games are quite attractive, too, as each of the four boys and girls Warriors and Northstars teams entered this week undefeated, with the boys sides staying that way after last Friday’s events.
At home, Liverpool’s Charles Pride reached a milestone as the Warriors defeated Nottingham 84-60, while C-NS, continuing its unlikely unbeaten run, matched its entire 2016-17 win total by going to West Genesee and beating the Wildcats 50-43.
Nottingham came to Liverpool with a 2-0 record, including a win over Jamesville-DeWitt, and the torrid pace the Warriors set didn’t bother the Bulldogs, nor did a 17-10 deficit at the end of the first quarter.
Staying in range, Nottingham only trailed 40-32 at halftime, but the third quarter was a Warriors blitz that featured 33 points, leaving the Bulldogs far behind them.
And Pride was the featured player of the night as the senior, with his 15 points, surpassed 1,000 career points as the game was stopped and he received a commemorative basketball for the occasion.
Nas Johnson and Allen Wilmes each had 14 points, with Peter Cerrone adding 13 points. Noah Issakainen (nine points) and Ryan Valentine (seven points) helped out as Nottingham’s Jakir Sanchez led all scorers with 25 points.
Meanwhile, in Camillus, C-NS was proving to West Genesee that its 6-0 start wasn’t a fluke, especially in the way the Northstars played down the stretch after trailing for most of the game.
Both sides struggled for baskets throughout the first half, and while that favored the Wildcats, it could not take full advantage, only going in front 21-17 by halftime.
Thus, C-NS could stay patient and wait to put things together – which it did in the fourth quarter, outscoring WG 17-9 in those last eight minutes.
Lukas Merluzzi finished with 17 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals. A.J. Forney controlled the paint with 14 points and six rebound as Omar Mere had nine points and four rebounds. Judah Bailey got seven rebounds and Riley Hogan had six rebounds.
Even with the showdown looming on Friday, neither Liverpool nor C-NS could afford to look past Tuesday’s games as the Warriors face 4-0 Henninger for the first time since last year’s Section III Class AA final and the Northstars deal with Fayetteville-Manlius.
