ONONDAGA COUNTY – For all the times they have met in the regular season, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool girls basketball teams rarely had encountered one another with stakes like this.
It was the top-seeded Northstars against the no. 4 seed Warriors in Sunday’s Section III Class AA semifinal at Onondaga Community College’s Allyn Hall.
Just like anticipated, it turned into a battle on every single possession, but just like their two regular-season encounters, C-NS got the best of it, prevailing by a score of 58-46 to earn a berth in Saturday’s final against no. 2 seed Baldwinsville.
The final margin did not reflect how closely fought most of the game was. Liverpool, in fact, led for large portions of the first half, sparked by Naveah Wingate as it raced out to a 15-8 advantage.
Fighting back, the Northstars went out in front in the second quarter, but the Warriors countered and, when Wingate drilled a 3-pointer from the corner right before halftime, Liverpool carried a 26-25 advantage to the break.
But that would be the last time the Warriors would lead.
C-NS blanked Liverpool for the first six minutes of the third quarter, and from there did an effective job answering every time the Warriors threatened.
When Liverpool cut it to 46-41 with nearly three minutes to play, Sydney Nesci countered with three free throws and two made baskets, all but putting the game out of reach.
It helped the Northstars, no doubt, that Liverpool, constantly sent to the free-throw line, struggled once there, only hitting on five of 21 foul shots.
Wingate, in particular, could not convert on her chances, even as she finished with a game-high 21 points. Alexa Kulakowski paced C-NS with 20 points, helped by 12 points from Alita Carey-Santagelo as Gianna Washington got 11 points for the Warriors.
To get there, both had to win quarterfinal games at home last Tuesday – and of the two, C-NS had far more stress, its 51-39 victory over no. 8 seed Fayetteville-Manlius not reflecting, at least in its final margin, how tough the game was.
C-NS had beaten the Hornets twice in the regular season. One of them was a 39-38 thriller on Dec. 23. The other was a 62-16 romp late in January, but F-M didn’t have its leading scorer, Ava Angello, in the lineup.
Angello’s presence made the playoff game more resemble the one in December, a tense, back-and-forth battle where the Northstars led most of the way, yet could not draw clear.
Patient on offense, F-M found good looks and had success inside thanks to Angello, who finished with 19 points, and Evie Kawa, who put in 12 points.
When Kawa converted with 3:10 left, the Hornets only trailed 43-38, but it would get no closer as C-NS kept anything from going in down the stretch and, for the entire fourth quarter, limited the visitors to just two field goals.
Kulakowski carried the Northstars for large portions of the game, hitting on all kinds of shots and finishing with 26 points as Carey-Santangelo overcame early foul trouble to put in 12 points. Brayden Schultz finished with eight points.
By contrast, Liverpool was downing no. 5 seed Utica Proctor 52-30 in a game that, while not as lopsided as the Warriors’ 61-27 win over the Raiders in January, still was never in serious doubt.
All through the first half, Liverpool shut down most of what Proctor tried to establish, steadily building a 29-12 lead by intermission.
And even when the Raiders played a strong third quarter and moved within range, 37-30, the Warriors replied by shutting out Proctor for the entire final period, netting 15 unanswered points.
Wingate again led the way, finishing with 22 points, helped mostly by Julia Wike, who had 10 points. No Proctor player scored in double figures as Emma Cohen paced the Raiders with nine points.
Liverpool’s season ended against C-NS, though, and the final would bring a rematch of the 2020 title game, the Northstars again looking to deny Baldwinsville its first sectional title since 1995.
