ONONDAGA COUNTY – Now the Baldwinsville girls basketball team has just what it required, and desired the most – a chance to challenge its neighbors and finally earn supremacy in the Section III Class AAA ranks.
The no. 3 seed Bees’ comprehensive 65-32 romp over no. 6 seed Fayetteville-Manlius Wednesday night advanced it to a sectional semifinal at Nottingham a week later against no. 2 seed Cicero-North Syracuse and a chance to avenge two regular-season defeats to the Northstars with a berth in the finals at stake.
B’ville had not played for 11 days since beating West Genesee in the Feb. 15 regular-season finale. What was more, F-M had played the Bees tough this winter, a 54-47 game in December and a 64-54 rematch earlier in February.
All of this motivated B’ville to show the Hornets that it was far from rusty.
Essentially the first quarter decided the game, for the Bees harassed F-M into a string of turnovers on defense and only allowed one field goal while making a steady parade to the basket on the other end.
By the time they reached the second period it was 21-2, and the margin grew to 36-9 by halftime, B’ville hardly letting up even though it could already start to think about its third encounter with C-NS.
Olivia Davis led the Bees with 18 points, while Maddy Polky and Natalie Hollingshead each connected on three 3-pointers, Polky finishing with 16 points and Hollingshead earning 11 points as Beverly Marinelli earned eight points.
A day after the B’ville girls won, the boys Bees would take its no. 7 seed in Class AAA to face no. 2 seed Cicero-North Syracuse, who was 19-1 but nearly lost at Baker High School a couple of weeks earlier.
That 55-54 thriller would inform this game as the Bees hoped for another tight, tense affair but the Northstars wanted something more like it did when it bashed B’ville 89-52 earlier in the season.
It ended up falling in between, with the Bees energetic and resilient, yet unable to keep unable to overcome a lopsided mid-game sequence in a 62-48 defeat.
Early in the second quarter B’ville’s Chris Patruno drilled a 3-pointer from the corner and his side went in front 15-14, but when Nate Francis answered with a 3-pointer of his own seconds later C-NS took the lead for good.
Francis put up eight points in a span of less than two minutes and the Northstars’ defense took over, holding the Bees without a point for more than six minutes in a stretch spanning into the third period.
By then, largely thanks to a 14-0 run C-NS led B’ville 47-27, but the Bees would briefly rally, netting the last eight points of the period and, with a Matt Pope free throws, cutting it to 47-36 early in the final period.
That’s as close as it would get, though. The Northstars got away again, Francis and Andrew Benedict each netting 21 points and Miy’Jon McDowell Reid adding 10 points to get C-NS to a sectional semifinal against Bishop Ludden on Tuesday night.
Finishing 8-13 overall, the Bees got 16 points from M.J. Young, Patruno adding 10 points. Pope and TeiShawn Wade had eight points apiece, with Ben Leaton earning six points.
