It wasn’t just history. It was perfection.
The Liverpool boys basketball team rallied late in the fourth quarter to defeat Half Hollow Hills East 71-65 Sunday at Binghamton’s Floyd L. Maines Veterans Memorial Arena and, by doing so, secured its first state Class AA championship.
“It feels great to bring a state title back to Liverpool,” said senior guard Charles Pride, the state tournament MVP, who said the 26-0 season culminated a year’s worth of work that started when the Warriors lost to Fairport in the 2017 state semifinal.
“It’s the best feeling in the world,” said senior forward Noah Issakainen. “I wouldn’t trade this feeling for anything else.”
Just as in so many of its post-season games, it took everyone in Liverpool’s main rotation to produce a big win, something that kept happening throughout 26 consecutive outings.
“26-0 is not easy to do,” said head coach Ryan Blackwell. “We could have lost a lot of different games, but so many guys stepped up and made play after play.””
A long time had passed since Liverpool reached this ultimate stage – 30 years, to be precise. The memory of that 1988 team which fell 77-67 to Rochester McQuaid in the state title game added even more motivation for the Warriors.
Winning would require a quick turnaround from a tough 70-67 victory over defending champion Mount Vernon in the previous day’s semifinal, while Hills East had an easier time of it putting away McQuaid 82-66 in the other semifinal.
Defensively, the Warriors’ main task was containing Thunderbirds guard Savion Lewis, a 6-foot-3 senior whose vast overall skills helped him earn the Mr. New York Basketball award from the Basketball Coaches Association of New York.
That didn’t happen early, as Hills East scored the game’s first seven points and forced the Warriors to use a time-out less than two minutes into the game. More alarming was the two early fouls that sent Nas Johnson to the bench.
Settling for 3-point attempts that mostly fell off the mark, the Warriors saw its deficit grow to 17-7 by the end of the first quarter, with Lewis earning eight of those points.
And that was just a warm-up for the second quarter, where Lewis scored the first five points and then put up seven straight points to answer a 9-0 Liverpool run. Yet the Warriors didn’t let it get way. Issakainen succeeded where his teammates could not, drilling four 3-pointers to keep Liverpool within range.
But the 24 points put up by Lewis had Hills East in front, 37-30, at halftime. Blackwell said that, in order to effectively deal with him, the Warriors mixed up 2-3 zone and man-to-man defenses, which proved effective – Lewis only had eight more points the rest of the way.
Meanwhile, sparked by Johnson’s return, Liverpool’s offense began to click With a 15-6 push,Liverpool went in front, and took a 52-51 lead to the final period. Johnson would score all of his 13 points in the second half.
They would go back and forth for most of the fourth quarter, with little separation. Trailing by three, 63-60, the Warriors got big back-to-back baskets from Alan Willmes Jr. to regain the lead with 2:20 left.
Liverpool would not trail again, but the issue was in doubt in the final minute, and it only figured that Pride would deliver the decisive blow, a mid-range jumper with 17 seconds left that stretched Liverpool’s lead to 69-65.
Pride, who finished with 18 points, seven rebounds and six assists, said that the original play was designed to go inside to Johnson, but with Hills East covering him, it left Pride wide-open, and he delivered.
Johnson’s clinching free throws capped an 11-2 closing burst. Issakainen, with 17 points, and Willmes, with 16 points, provided perfect scoring balance as Kyle Butler recorded seven assists and three steals.
The final horn triggered a long celebration that continued when the team ventured back to Liverpool, accompanied by a contingent of Moyers’ Corners Fire Department trucks.
Once things died down, though, the Warriors turned its attention to the state Federation Tournament of Champions that takes place this weekend at Glens Falls’ Cool Insuring Arena.
On Friday night at 7:45, Liverpool faces New York City PSAL champion South Shore in the semifinals. The winner goes to Saturday night’s title game against Long Island Lutheran or Stepniac.
