Perhaps humbled by the defeats it took to Shenendehowa and Averill Park the weekend before, the Cicero-North Syracuse girls basketball team was quite eager to find its usual form back in Central New York.
The Northstars hosted Nottingham last Tuesday night and handled the Bulldogs 67-40, and the main theme was the way its forward duo of Jessica Cook and Julia Rowe handled the paint.
Cook finished with 24 points, while Rowe earned 17 points, seven of them at the free-throw line. Help came from Abbee Norris and Alita Carey-Santangelo, who earned six points apiece.
All of this followed the rough weekend in the Albany area, where, after losing 80-46 to Shenendehowa, it could not quite turn it around against an Averill Park side that had ripped past Jamesville-DeWitt the day before.
In that 54-42 loss on Dec. 8, Cook, with 15 points, and Rowe, with 11 points, had normal production, while Mackenzie White had nine points. But AP held every other player except Carey-Santangelo without a field goal.
The Nottingham win was followed by a week’s worth of practice before C-NS took off for Arizona this week, ready to play in a national showcase tournament organized by Nike. C-NS would have four games here, and then rest and practice for the last couple of weeks of 2019.
When the Northstars return Jan. 3, it’s against archrival Liverpool, who was off for most of last week until it had a Saturday game at Elmira, which proved quite difficult.
The Warriors lost 91-58 to the Express, but it was not that lopsided in the first half, Liverpool producing plenty of baskets and only trailing 37-27 at the break.
Then Elmira made everything in the third quarter, ultimately outscoring the Warriors 30-10. That settled matters, though Karlyssa Shifflett still had 17 points, with Victoria Morgan getting 13 points. Navea Wingate finished with 11 points and Melania Nappa got eight points.
Having fallen to 1-2 on the season, Liverpool would challenge three-time defending sectional Class AA champion West Genesee Tuesday night and then deal with Fayetteville-Manlius on Thursday.
