SYRACUSE – Once more the Baldwinsville girls basketball team found itself in a Section III Class AAA semifinal attempting to conquer a rival it had just missed beating in the regular season, and once again the effort fell short.
The no. 3 seed Bees were never able to recover from a cold start to Wednesday night’s semifinal at Nottingham High School in a 49-33 defeat to no. 2 seed Cicero-North Syracuse.
While Liverpool had stopped B’ville in this same semifinal round in 2024, this time it was the Northstars as the opposition, and the Bees had at least some reason to think it could pull it out.
Two regular-season meetings between these sides were quite competitive. C-NS won them 59-50 in December and 56-45 in January, but B’ville did enough to believe that, if a few more shots fell, it might turn around.
What happened instead was a combination of everything going wrong for the Bees in the face of a Northstars defense which was in top form despite not having played a game in two weeks.
For the entire first period B’ville was kept off the board, with a string of turnovers and missed shots that negated its own work mostly containing C-NS outside.
In fact, the Northstars did not have a single 3-pointer in the first half. But since it was so good on the other end of the ball it could just work inside and, even when the shutout ended, build a 24-8 advantage on the Bees by halftime.
All through the second half any attempt by B’ville to catch up was answered, with the offense mostly coming from six 3-pointers by Maddy Polky which accounted for most of her 19 points.
Natalie Hollingshead had six points and Olivia Davis was held to five points. Beverly Marinelli had the Bees’ only other field goal.
C-NS, who advanced to a sectional final rematch with Liverpool, mostly leaned on junior guard Leah Benedict, who finished with 24 points. Jilly Howell added eight points as Grace Villnave and Meadow Werts had six points apiece.
Finishing at 14-8 overall, the Bees only graduate Maddy Polky. Every other key player, including Davis, Hollingshead, Marinelli and Capri Hartman, could come back for 2025-26 hungry to make another push for glory.
