CICERO – Recent years have offered up a whole lot of memorable football clashes between Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool, both in the regular season and the post-season.
However, the 2022 edition of the Northstars had absolutely no interest in making things exciting or dramatic in the latest clash for the ‘Star Wars’ Cup.
A trio of fist-quarter touchdowns quickly put C-NS well out in front during Friday’s meeting at Bragman Stadium, and Liverpool could not recover from it, the Northstars going on to a 36-0 victory.
Counting last fall’s 17-0 win over the Warriors in the Section III Class AA semifinal, it marked the second straight time C-NS had kept Liverpool off the board.
It was true that the Warriors entered this game dealing with plenty of struggles, having lost three in a row, but given the nature of this rivalry, C-NS was not about to assume things would be easy.
Ready from the opening kickoff, the Northstars quickly moved down the field on its first possession. La’Quan Lemon, who was with Liverpool a season ago, scored from eight yards out, also getting the two-point conversion, and C-NS had the lead for good.
Quickly, the Northstars added to its total thanks to Lemon, who broke out for a 25-yard scoring run to make it 15-0 with Tyler Davies’ extra point.
And just before the period ended, C-NS moved to the Warriors’ 40, from where Jaxon Razmovski threw deep and found Tristan Johnson for his only touchdown pass of the night.
To its credit, Liverpool’s defense did a solid job the rest of the night, containing the Northstars and only allowing one more touchdown, Lemon’s third of the night on an18-yard run.
Meanwhile, a Northstars defense just three weeks removed from surrendering 42 points to Christian Brothers Academy kept the Warriors from ever reaching the end zone.
And the C-NS defense tacked on a touchdown when it forced a fumble in the Warriors’ end zone that Jayceon McGrew recovered.
Now at 5-1 overall (3-1 league), the state no. 16-ranked Northstars go to Rome Free Academy Thursday night right before Liverpool hosts CBA on Friday at 6:30.
