SYRACUSE – Nine times in the previous 12 occasions, the Cicero-North Syracuse girls basketball team had risen to the moment and grabbed the Section III Class AA championship.
When the Northstars sought another title against Baldwinsville, the same side it beat the last time it was held in 2020, it would pull through again, taking over in the fourth quarter to defeat the Bees 53-45 Saturday night at SRC Arena.
“It feels great,” said senior guard Alita Carey-Santangelo. “We have gone through a long, hard season and have really grown. They (B’ville) wanted it, too, but we wanted it more.”
Recent history had gone in C-NS’s favor – not just the sectional final two years ago, but the two regular-season meetings that the Northstars had won to snare the top playoff seed, though both games were close and competitive.
Everyone on both sides expected a similar battle – and got it as, after Ola Bednarczyk netted the game’s first five points for the Bees, neither team had a lead that big in the first three quarters.
From the outset, B’ville’s defense was bent on stopping C-NS’s leading scorer, Alexa Kulakowski – and that plan worked as Kulakowski only managed a single 3-pointer for most of the night.
Seeing this, said Carey-Santangelo, “I definitely felt like I could drive to the hoop, so I did.”
Netting 17 of her game-high 23 points, Carey-Santangelo staked the Northstars to a 33-29 lead late in the third period, but B’ville struck for six straight points in the last minute to go up, 35-33, leading to the fourth quarter.
C-NS head coach Rob Siechen said he made a defensive adjustment, instructing his players to disrupt B’ville’s pick-and-roll game and deny them any sort of entry into the paint.
For her part, Carey-Santangelo said the message in the huddle before the final period was to “take a deep breath and play our game.”
And that game mostly involved a defense that would manage to hold B’ville without a field goal for nearly seven minutes, forcing turnovers and hurried shots that constantly missed the mark.
Meanwhile, C-NS put together 10 unanswered points, four each from Carey-Santangelo and Kathleen McRobbie-Taru, and led 43-35 before the Bees finally ended its drought with two Kyrah Wilbur free throws.
Twice, Bednarczyk, with a 3-pointer and then a pair of foul shots, brought B’ville within three, but C-NS countered with Kulakowski’s second field goal of the night and then eight straight free throws to close it out.
Sydney Nesci hit four of those foul shots, finishing with nine points overall. Kulakowski had seven points, with McRobbie-Taru and Brayden Schultz getting six points apiece.
Now it’s back to the state tournament, where this Saturday at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy C-NS will face Section II champion Albany in the regional final, looking to return to that same venue for next weekend’s state final four.
Having coached Jamesville-DeWitt to a trio of state titles before he took over at C-NS, Siechen said the key to success at this level is not to get overhyped and focus on just playing the opponent in front of them.
It’s something Carey-Santangelo believes is possible. “We can do it,” she said.
