LIVERPOOL – Half a regular season of girls basketball seemed to indicate that Liverpool offered the most stern challenge to Cicero-North Syracuse and its place atop the area Class AA ranks.
And what took place Tuesday night only seemed to reinforce that point. Strong on both ends at the outset, the Warriors built a big lead and then held on to claim a 70-63 victory over the Northstars.
Liverpool entered the game 8-2 and no. 15 in the state AA rankings, with C-NS in the no. 22 spot, but both sides were undefeated in the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division, making this a first-place clash between the neighbors and rivals.
For all that took place on this night, how the game started would prove decisive.
After Maddy Howell scored the game’s first basket, the Warriors took off on a 15-0 run that covered nearly four minutes. The Warriors swarmed on defense, forced turnovers and got easy baskets on the other end, mostly from Neveah Wingate and Jakeira Stackhouse.
As if that wasn’t enough, after C-NS offered a strong answer with eight points from Kathleen Taru, Liverpool put together a 12-0 spurt that bridged the first and second quarters, and stretched its margin to 32-11.
Despite all this, the Northstars began to settle down and take advantage when Wingate sat with two early fouls, trying hard to chip away at the big deficit throughout the game’s middle stages.
Answering this, the Warriors turned to sophomore A’briyah Cunningham, who hit on nine of her 17 points in the third quarter, which kept her team’s lead in double digits.
Yet C-NS still battled back, led by Taru, who finished with 23 points, and Brianna Weaver, who had 13 of her 14 points in the second half. It got even tighter when the Warriors missed a string of free throws late in the fourth quarter.
With more than a minute to play, Weaver’s layup cut it to 64-59, but after seven consecutive misses at the line, Liverpool sealed it when it worked the ball to Kaylyn Sweeney. When fouled, Sweeney made seven straight free throws in the final minute.
Wingate still led the Warriors with 20 points. More than half of Sweeney’s 12 points came from those late foul shots as Stackhouse finished with 10 points and Gianna Washington eight points. These two sides meet again Feb. 7 at C-NS.
