All of the truths of the Liverpool boys basketball team’s historic 2017-18 season, especially claiming its first-ever New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship with a 26-0 record, were still in place.
Yet the Warriors wanted two more wins and to add a Federation Tournament of Champions title to that ledger, only to see that dream derailed by the best large-school team from New York City.
Public School Athletic League champion South Shore, from Brooklyn, jumped all over Liverpool in Friday night’s Federation semifinal at Glens Falls’ Cool Insuring Arena (formerly Civic Center), and then kept going until the Vikings had smothered the Warriors 80-48.
True, South Shore arrived in Glens Falls with eight losses on the season. But that had come through playing a tough schedule that served the Vikings well as it won each of its PSAL playoff games by double digits.
By contrast, Liverpool had, at one point or another, trailed in each of its past five post-season games- the sectional semifinals and finals (against Bishop Ludden and Nottingham), plus its regional final win over Shenendehowa and its state final four contests against Mount Vernon and Half Hollow Hills East, yet had won them all.
It wouldn’t happen this time, though.
The tone was set in the opening minutes thanks to breakaway dunks by South Shore’s Isaiah Richards and Femi Odukale, creating a 14-5 Vikings lead.
Even a Warriors timeout didn’t stop South Shore, who kept pressing, kept exploiting every Liverpool mistake and outscored the Warriors 13-1 the rest of the first quarter.
That 24-6 deficit ultimately proved too much to overcome, though Liverpool sure tried. It whittled away at South Shore’s lead for the rest of the half and, at one point early in the third quarter, pulled within 10.
And that’s where the fun ended. Four straight Warriors turnovers foreshadowed a 14-0 Vikings run that extended the margin to 44-20, and from there it turned into a futile chase.
Above all, Liverpool didn’t get the barrage of 3-pointers that helped so much so many other times this season. Attempting 25 shots from beyond the arc, the Warriors just made four of them, and South Shore out-rebounded the Warriors 48-29, too.
Nas Johnson still finished with 16 points and seven rebounds, while state tournament MVP Charles Pride had 11 points and eight rebounds. Alan Willmes Jr. added eight points.
Perhaps, after spending so much energy to gain that NYSPHAA title in Binghamton the weekend before, the Warriors had little left when compared with South Shore, who advanced to face Stepinac in the Federation final – and lost that game, 88-76.
Now the Warriors’ remarkable senior class that included Pride, Johnson, Willmes, Noah Issakainen, Peter Cerrone and Joe DeSocio graduates, with Kyle Butler and Jacob Piseno among the players returning for 2018-19 having already helped take the Liverpool program to its highest-ever plateau.
