MANLIUS – One side of the rivalry wants to prolong its reign. The other wants a long-awaited coronation.
It’s not a big stretch to say that the stakes on Saturday when Liverpool faces Cicero-North Syracuse for the boys basketball Section III Class AAA championship at SRC Arena go beyond merely who gets to hold the championship banner at game’s end.
For years – really, for decades – the Northstars have mostly chased the glory attained by the Warriors, which recently has included a 2018 state title and back-to-back sectional titles in 2022 and ’23.
Even in this superb season from C-NS where it has gone 20-2 to reach the sectional title game, one of those defeats was to Liverpool in overtime in December, which it desperately wants to avenge.
At least the Northstars have already earned one bit of payback, getting it in Wednesday’s tense sectional semifinal at Fayetteville-Manlius when it rallied to defeat Rome Free Academy 64-61 after the Warriors, in the first semifinal, put on a defensive clinic to oust Utica Proctor 44-27.
Back on Jan. 23, C-NS went to RFA and got beat 97-78, an indication of how the Black Knights had fared all season with a high-flying offense that, on three other occasions, broke the 100-point barrier.
Bent on not having this happen again, the Northstars weathered two different RFA surges in the first half. The Black Knights jumped out 13-3 and, after C-NS tied it 16-16 to close out the first quarter, built up its margin back to 36-25 as the half wound down.
Nothing the Northstars did was as important as the way the second quarter ended, with five straight points capped by a Michael Pfautz 3-pointer that both cut the deficit to 36-30 at the break and gave C-NS all the momentum.
Tightening up on defense, the Northstars caught up in the third quarter. Then star junior Andrew Benedict carried the C-NS attack late, notching nine points to run his total to 21 after RFA had mostly contained him in the early going.
Even with this, the Black Knights were within one, 57-56, with less than 30 seconds left. Four free throws, plus a charge taken in the final seconds when RFA trailed by three and could still tie it, saw the game out.
Nate Francis earned 14 points, with Pfautz getting eight points and Terrance Coppock seven points. Suraffa Norries (17 points) and Deandre Neal (15 points) led RFA, but Uzziah Grimes, the Black Knights’ all-time leading scorer, was limited to 10 points and his team had its lowest point total of the season.
Yet even RFA’s modest total was more than double what Utica Proctor got against Liverpool in the first semifinal. In fact, the Raiders didn’t even reach double digits on the scoreboard until the third quarter.
All season long, the Warriors knew it could lean on its defense when it was struggling on the other end. Never was that more evident than here, when Liverpool gave up two early field goals to Proctor – and just one for the rest of the half.
Thus, the Warriors could weather its own drought, go out in front on Alex Trombley’s jumper to close the first quarter and then steadily add to its margin without doing anything close to spectacular.
Forcing Proctor outside with an effective 2-3 zone, Liverpool built up a 26-9 margin by the third quarter. Even when the Raiders finally started to make some baskets, the Warriors answered it, never letting the margin get closer than 12 in the final period.
With everyone else seeming to struggle (no Proctor player scored in double figures), Alex Trombley stood out with 15 points, including a trio of 3-pointers. Jeff Manuel anchored the zone and got nine points, with Freddie Fowler and Kaelem Haskins earning eight points apiece.
