SYRACUSE – Absent a Section III title since 2016, the Westhill girls basketball team worked together and, with passion and energy, moved within a single step of ending that drought.
Against top seed and defending champion General Brown in Sunday’s sectional semifinal at Onondaga Community College’s Allyn Hall, the no. 4 seed Warriors used a comprehensive effort to stun the Lions 50-46.
Ahead for most of the game, Westhill saw GB fight back and take a 44-43 lead with less than three minutes left. More worrying, a Warriors offense that was effective for long stretches had gone more than seven minutes without a field goal.
Janiah Robinson’s pair of free throws gave Westhill the lead back, 45-44. Then, off a missed Lions shot, a long pass found Robinson again and she converted a lay-up with 40 seconds left.
Trailing 47-44, GB closed back within one on a pair of Madelyn Ferris foul shots. Then the Lions forced a turnover and had a chance, in the waning seconds, to perhaps win it.
Enter Tess Roesch, who had just seven points but then made the biggest play of her Westhill career, stealing the ball and forcing GB to foul – which turned out to be an intentional foul, meaning two free throws and possession.
Robinson made just one of those two foul shots, but having to foul with 10.9 seconds to play, the Lions could only watch as Lizzy McPeak calmly sank the two clinching free throws.
This was a true team performance on Westhill’s part. Robinson had set the tone early, scoring 10 of her 16 points in the first 10 minutes and sparking a 9-0 run that got the Warriors in front in the second quarter.
As the game passed through its middle stages, Jules Bleskoski and Izzy Young took their turns carrying the attack, also hitting double figures as Bleskoski finished with 14 points and Young 11 points.
What’s more, the entire Warrior squad held its own on the boards and pressured the Lions into tough shots, never letting GB put together any sustained scoring run after the game’s opening minutes.
Now all that stands between Westhill and the sectional title is no. 3 seed Cortland, whom the Warriors will face Saturday at 3 p.m. at SRC Arena in the Class B title game.
Marcellus, the no. 7 seed who upended no. 2 seed Mexico in the quarterfinals, tried for another upset in the first semifinal on Sunday at OCC, only to get shut down in a 41-35 defeat to the Purple Tigers.
Right from the outset, the game was tough and hard-fought, the Mustangs again finding that, on the offensive end, it was leaning on Cece Powell.
In a 9-9 first quarter, Powell had all of her team’s points on a banked-in 3-pointers, two steals and layups and a pair of free throws. Others finally got on the board in the second, but it didn’t happen often.
Cortland’s zone defense just never made the Mustangs comfortable, the Purple Tigers inching its way in front by halftime and then building a 10-point margin in the third quarter.
Battling back, Marcellus twice got within a single possession. Then, leading 32-29, Cortland got a big 3-pointer from Kendall Mack and the Mustangs never got as close again.
Powell remained close to the only source of production for Marcellus, finishing with 28 points. Bella Mondello had the Mustangs’ lone other field goal, but was held to four points as Mack (13 points), Mallory Turner (12 points) and Valerosa Gambitta (11 points) all hit double figures for the Purple Tigers.
