If the Baldwinsville girls basketball team had gained any sense of comfort or security from winning its first three games of the season, Cicero-North Syracuse erased it in a hurry.
Hosting the Northstars last Tuesday night at Baker High School, the Bees found itself unable to keep up with the strong all-around effort C-NS put out there, taking a 76-50 defeat.
Since it had already played three times (beating Oswego once and Rome Free Academy twice), B’ville was supposed to have the game rhythm that the Northstars lacked.
However, C-NS had spent an entire off-season working to erase the bad memory of a narrow defeat to West Genesee in last March’s Section III Class AA title game, and was also out to prove that it could still be quite effective even though its top scorer, Amani Free, graduated and is now at Quinnipiac University.
Right from the opening tip, C-NS’s quality was on display. The takeover began with Julia Rowe netting seven consecutive points in the first quarter to help C-NS to an 18-9 lead. Then it expanded that margin until Mackenzie White’s 3-pointer at the horn established a 35-20 halftime margin.
Jessica Cook took over in the third quarter, scoring most of her 12 points in this frame. At one point, the Northstars reeled off 11 straight points in just two-plus minutes to make it 55-27, putting things out of reach.
Rowe led with 17 points as 11 different C-NS players recorded at least one field goal. White had nine points, all from three 3-pointers, while Brandi Feeney and Aniah Ingram had seven points apiece.
Katie Pascale paced B’ville with 15 points, while Sydney Huhtala had 10 points and Jordan Roy got seven points.
B’ville would not find relief when it ventured to Liverpool two nights later. The Warriors prevailed 45-33 in the debut of new head coach Nicole McManus, who had previously led Bishop Ludden to back-to-back sectional Class B titles.
Now it was the Warriors’ defense that shut the Bees down for long stretches of the first half, leading to a 23-9 deficit that B’ville would spend the rest of the night trying to erase.
And the margin did shrink to 28-22 before the fourth quarter, but Liverpool still got away behind fine work from Lindsey Toper (11 points, 11 rebounds), Amanda Barnell and Victoria Morgan (eight points apiece).
Pascale led the Bees with eight points, with Huhtala getting seven points and Alexandra Bednarczyk earning six points. B’ville fell to 3-2 overall and would spend most of this week working to patch things up before a Saturday game with Henninger at Onondaga Community College’s Allyn Hall at 7 p.m.
