ONONDAGA COUNTY – Just as important for the Cicero-North Syracuse girls basketball team as getting that 49-45 win over archrival Liverpool on Feb. 15 was following it up in the two games which still remained in the regular season.
Barely 24 hours later the Northstars found itself at Bishop Ludden but did quite well to avoid any kind of letdown by again leaning on its defense in a 56-39 victory over the Gaelic Knights.
All through the first three quarters a normally potent Ludden attack found itself stymied, C-NS only surrendering six points in the opening period, seven in the second and five in the third. For the game, two key Gaelic Knights contributors, Abby Reynolds and Elizabeth Gaughan, had just three combined field goals.
Though it wasn’t a lot better on the other end, the Northstars still built a 34-18 advantage which held up down the stretch, Leah Benedict finishing with 18 points mostly from four 3-pointers.
Kylah Bednar contributed nine points off the bench, with Grace Villnave, Jilly Howell and Meadow Werts earning six points apiece. For Ludden, Sophia Chemotti led with 11 points, Ava Carpenter adding nine points, seven rebounds and six assists.
It figured to get tougher three days later against Marcellus, the Class B contender with a duo of 1,000-point scorers, Cece Powell and Tenly Baker, leading the way.
Instead, the Northstars performed close to perfection in the early stages, jumping out to a 23-5 lead by the end of the first quarter and extending it to 44-16 by halftime on the way to a 68-47 victory.
Depth made the difference, for though Powell piled up 34 points, most of them in the second half, C-NS didn’t lean as much on Benedict despite her 21 points mostly from five 3-pointers.
Howell finished with 10 points, just ahead of Alexis Gasparini earning eight points. Villnave had seven points as Werts, Liv Cook and Avery Rumble had six points apiece.
C-NS held the no. 14 spot in the state AAA rankings four spots ahead of Liverpool at no. 18 as they again held the top two seeds for the sectional playoffs.
With just six teams in the sectional field, this means byes directly into the March 5 semifinals at Nottingham High School, with top seed Liverpool getting the winner of this Thursday’s game between no. 4 seed Rome Free Academy and no. 5 seed Ludden and no. 2 seed C-NS getting either no. 3 seed Baldwinsville or no. 6 seed Fayetteville-Manlius.
