CENTRAL NEW YORK – Everyone on the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse boys basketball teams understand the intense nature of their rivalry with one another.
What adds to it is the fact that both are quite good and arrive at Tuesday night’s clash with similar records, knowing that they split two games a season ago even as the Warriors went on to win the Section III Class AA title.
Liverpool had taken its first blemish on Dec. 28 when it surrendered a fourth-quarter lead to Schenectady in the opening round of the Troy Holiday Tournament.
But the Warriors turned it around a day later and beat Troy 71-58, this time making sure its margin was big enough to withstand any late struggles.
Liverpool outscored the Flying Horses 16-7 in the first quarter and kept going until its margin was 52-33 through three periods, a lot of it due to Andreo Ash, who poured in 28 points.
Troy couldn’t key on Ash too much, either, since Bruce Wingate stepped up with 16 points. Jah’Deuir Reese added nine points as Fred Fowler had seven points.
Three games awaited the Warriors in the first week of the new year, including the makeup of its snowed-out Dec. 23 visit from Baldwinsville.
Handling Henninger 79-55 last Tuesday night, Liverpool outscored the Black Knights in every quarter as Ash, with 20 points, and Wingate, with 19 points, led the way. Luca Latocha added 10 points as Reese added eight points.
Though it was closer against Corcoran Friday night, Liverpool won 67-56, with Wingate matching Ash’s total of 21 points, Latocha adding 10 points and Reese earning nine points.
Then, against B’ville on Saturday, Liverpool had difficulty with the Bees’ stingy defense, but did enough to prevail 49-37 and move to 7-1 on the season.
Ash was constantly fouled, and ended up getting 11 of his 27 points at the free-throw line. That, along with Wingate’s 13 points, was enough against the Bees, who only had Jason Bifulco (16 points) get to double figures.
C-NS, meanwhile, had stayed at home and, in its own round-robin tournament, beat Section II’s Troy LaSalle before meeting Section V’s Edison Tech a day later and fighting to a 56-51 victory over the Inventors.
The third quarter made the difference as the Northstars, up 25-22 at the break, outscored Edison 18-10, which allowed it to absorb a late Inventors rally.
Again Andrew Benedict led the way, pouring in 24 points. No other C-NS player reached double figures, though Michael Gallo got all nine of his points from equaling Benedict’s trio of 3-pointers as Terrance Coppack got seven points and Reece Congel six points.
Opening 2023, C-NS met Baldwinsville last Tuesday and got into some big early trouble, escaped from it and then held on late to edge the Bees 44-43.
If the Northstars took B’ville lightly, a 14-3 run by the Bees through the first quarter changed that mindset, and C-NS spent the rest of the half eating into that margin.
C-NS outscored B’ville 32-14 in the second and third periods, then withstood a late Bees surge led by Jason Bifulco, who had a game-high 21 points. Benedict had 15 points and Congel 14 points to pace the Northstars.
A bigger game loomed Friday, C-NS making its way to Fayetteville-Manlius for the first meeting between the two since the Hornets ousted the Northstars in last winter’s sectional quarterfinals.
Again, F-M got the best of it, prevailing 67-59 as, feeding off the energy of its home crowd on “Pink Out” night, it took charge in a second quarter where it outscored the Northstars 23-4.
Trevor Roe led the Hornets, hitting six 3-pointers on his way to 34 points, nearly matching the career mark of 35 he set a week earlier against Auburn.
Try as it could, C-NS could not overcome that mid-game drought, though Congel poured in 24 points, Michael Gallo had 16 points and Benedict got 11 points.
