All the elements were in place for a red-colored celebration Saturday night at Onondaga Community College’s Allyn Hall.
At the center of it was the Baldwinsville girls basketball team, a special group that, in 2019-20, had won 20 of 21 games and needed just one more victory to secure the program’s first Section III title in 25 years.
From loud fans to a robust student section to the presence of the famed B’ville Pep Band, the college gym had the feel of Baker High School and the Bees seemed quite ready to make its long-awaited ascent to the top.
Except that the other side, the only one to beat B’ville this season, picked quite a time to do so again.
Cicero-North Syracuse, the no. 2 seed, upended the top-seeded Bees 52-37 in the sectional Class AA final, hurting B’ville early with hot outside shooting and late with the work of forward Jessica Cook, with a ferocious defense the common element threading those two considerations.
If the motivation inherent in pursuing a sectional title wasn’t powerful enough, the last team standing in the way was the only one to defeat B’ville this season.
And while the Bees avenged that 50-45 loss to C-NS on Jan. 17 when they played again a few weeks later at Baker High School, the Northstars were without two key players, Julia Rowe and Mackenzie White, that night.
Both were here now, and Rowe, in particular, would play a starring role in B’ville’s eventual demise.
Just like in those first two meetings, the Bees were determined to use its speed, athleticism and scoring depth to take charge while C-NS wanted Cook to dominate in the paint.
All of that changed once the game tipped off, though, and in the first 90 seconds the Northstars raced in front 7-0 with a Rowe 3-pointer and back-to-back baskets from Cook and Alita Carey-Santangelo.
C-NS would make B’ville pay dearly for the double teams they gave to Cook throughout the first half. Six different times, the Northstars converted from beyond the arc.
No sequence was as important as what took place late in the second quarter. The Bees had cut C-NS’s lead to 21-19 when Alexandra Miller hit on a 3-pointer and followed with a driving layup.
Then Abbee Norris hit a 3-pointer of her own and Gabby Hillman also striking from long distance just before the horn, capping an 11-2 run that boosted the Northstars to a 32-21 halftime lead,
When B’ville scored the first six points of the third quarter, C-NS turned up its defensive pressure and blanked the Bees for the next six-plus minutes, a drought that stretched until the final period.
By then, Cook was back in her usual form. Scoring 11 consecutive points in the fourth quarter, Cook worked her total to 20 points and put B’ville away.
Ola Bednarczyk again led B’ville’s attack, the sophomore earning 15 points as fellow sophomore Sydney Huhtala got 10 points. But no other Bees player had more than the five points put up by Katie Pascale.
It’s Pascale, the senior point guard, that will prove most difficult to replace in 2020-21. Jordan Roy also graduates, as does Megan Brecht, but Bednarczyk, Huhtala, Hannah Mimas and Kyrah Wilbur will lead a strong returning cast next winter.
