ONONDAGA COUNTY – A long 16 years have passed since the Liverpool girls basketball team last lay claim to the Section III Class AA championship.
The entire extraordinary career of Breanna Stewart, which got its start at Cicero-North Syracuse, has taken place in that span, along with 10 sectional titles for the Northstars, including the last two.
Now they go into the post-season in a different state. It was Liverpool favored and expected to win it all and C-NS the upstart trying to reverse two regular-season losses to the Warriors.
However, the playoff bracket did not have Liverpool on top despite its 17-3 record and no. 10 state ranking.
The Warriors are the no. 3 seed (Auburn and Rome Free Academy have the top two seeds) and, as a result, go straight into a quarterfinal next Wednesday at 5 p.m. against a dangerous opponent, no. 6 seed Bishop Ludden, who had the no. 19 state ranking and, led by 2,000-point scorer Amarah Streiff, won the Class A title a year ago, though Liverpool did beat them twice in the regular season.
As for the state no. 15-ranked Northstars, it draws the no. 4 seed and, in its quarterfinal Tuesday night at 6 p.m., faces no. 5 seed Henninger, who sat at no. 29 in the state despite two earlier losses to C-NS.
Just before learning its post-season fate, the Northstars rolled through last Monday’s 64-26 win over South Jefferson where it shut out the Spartans in the first quarter while putting up 20 unanswered points.
All 12 players that saw action for the Nothstars got on the scoreboard, including three JV call-ups – Leah Benedict, Amanda Timmons and Mallory Wessels, partially brought up due to injuries to key players like Sydney Nesci and Mallory Brooks.
Things were spread out, too, with no one getting more than Alexis Gasparini’s total of 10 points as Benedict produced nine points, Brianna Weaver eight points and Olivia Cook seven points. Kat McRobbie joined Timmons in getting six points.
