CENTRAL NEW YORK – Outlasting all of its neighbors, the Marcellus girls basketball team will make the short trip to Onondaga Community College’s Allyn Hall this Saturday to play for a Section III championship.

Getting there required the Mustangs to make a much longer trip, east to Rome Free Academy, and knock off a strong General Brown side in Wednesday’s semifinal round – which it did, defeating the Lions 44-38.’

These teams had met in the regular season, GB pulling it out 59-57 on Dec. 29 by overcoming 33 points from Cece Powell with 21 points from Mollie Peckham to go with 19 points and 15 rebounds from Madelyn Ferris.

Playing the Lions close before helped Marcellus, as did the motivation to go further after a sectional semifinal defeat to Cortland in 2023.

Again, it proved close. The Mustangs took an early lead, only to slump in the second quarter, limited to just six points as the Lions inched in front, 21-19, going to the break.

What was apparent, though, was how much Marcellus had improved on defense since that first meeting. It rarely allowed GB to get open looks outside, holding it to just three 3-pointers – which Gabby Voss topped all by herself with four of them to account for all of her 12 points.

This, along with a steady string of baskets on the other end, led to a 14-6 push through the third quarter that gave the Mustangs the lead for good, something it held on to late with solid free-throw shooting.

Powell, despite all the focus the Lions put on her, managed 18 points, including five free throws. Ferris, with 14 points, was the only GB player to score in double figures.

Now Marcellus would have to step up even more to knock off top seed Utica Notre Dame (who routed Little Falls 73-48 in the other semifinal) in the sectional title game.

This was where Bishop Ludden and Westhill wanted to go, too, but they were stifled in their respective sectional semifinals.

At Central Square in Wednesday’s Class AAA semifinal, Ludden was topped 60-31 by Cicero-North Syracuse, a team it played closer when they met late in December and the Gaelic Knights dropped a 51-43 decision.

The Gaelic Knights had gone 16-1 since that first game with C-NS, and had a firm belief that it possessed the game to knock off the Northstars.

Instead, this rematch belonged to the C-NS defense. From the middle of the first quarter to the late portion of the third quarter, the Gaelic Knights managed just one field goal and was outscored 35-4.

After Ludden hit a pair of outside shots in the opening minutes, the Northstars switched to man-to-man pressure and smothered anything Ludden tried while, at the same time, controlled the boards, never allowing offensive rebounds.

Meanwhile, the offense was sparked by senior Kat McRobbie-Taru, who until the game’s final minutes was outscoring the Gaelic Knights all by herself, picking up 26 points with everything from drives to the basket to long 3-pointers, including one at the horn at the end of the opening period.

Only in the fourth quarter did some shots finally fall for Ludden. Jordyn Townes led with 13 points while Bridget Dunham, emotional in her exit of her last high-school game before heading to Le Moyne College, added 10 points.

A day earlier, at Phoenix, Westhill would face its own severe test against top seed Indian River in the Class A semifinals and get overwhelmed in a 74-28 loss similar to the 70-25 game these teams had early in February.

Now, as then, the story was how IR controlled every facet of the game, starting with a defense that held Westhill to two points in the first quarter and rarely allowed them much production in the other parts of the game.

Equally difficult was Westhill trying to figure out who to stop. IR had a well-balanced attack as Keera LaLonde (15 points, 10 rebounds) and Isabella Davis (10 points, 13 rebounds) both had double-doubles, with Ravan Marsell adding 14 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three steals and Michaela Delles also earning 14 points.

By contrast, for Westhill only Izzy Young, with nine points, and Reagan Rogers, with six points, had more than one field goal, the team’s season concluding with a 13-8 record.