ONONDAGA COUNTY – Whenever something new takes place, anyone who is part of that history is proud of that mere fact, but in high school sports there’s also the desire to win and make those memories even better.
This is what girls flag football teams at Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse desired in the first-ever Section III Division I playoffs that spread out over three days late last week.
Liverpool, with the no. 3 seed, met no. 2 seed Syracuse East in the semifinals, a team it beat in a wild 32-30 battle just the week before.
Here, though, East’s defense contained the Warriors, only surrendering a Grace Muller touchdown and, getting three touchdowns from Ta’Kai Baker, prevailing by a score of 26-7.
C-NS just wanted to get to that semifinal round, but was kept off the board last Wednesday in a 20-0 opening-round defeat to Syracuse West.
They had played twice in the regular season, the Northstars winning 27-6 in mid-April but Syracuse West getting even 19-14 just a week before they met in the playoffs.
Right from the outset, the story was Syracuse West’s defense taking what it had learned from those first two games and shutting down anything the C-NS offense tried.
As for the Northstars’ defense, it had good moments, but Syracuse West quarterback Amiyah Williams broke free running for one TD and threw another to Tyra Wren, while Adorable Reddish, a defensive standout, scored on a long run.
Syracuse West went on to a 12-0 loss to Baldwinsville in the semifinals, and in the championship game B’ville beat Syracuse East 19-2 behind three touchdowns from Aubrey Rizzo to earn that inaugural sectional title.
Moving to boys tennis, even if it was quite familiar with the opponent due to recent experience, C-NS could not turn around its results against Baldwinsville.
When these two SCAC Metro division rivals clashed last Monday in the Section III Class A quarterfinals, the no. 7 seed Northstars challenged the no. 2 seed, and left on the wrong side of a 5-0 defeat.
Identical scores of 6-1 and 6-4 in first and third singles were found, Mike DeGroat falling to Mason Doan and Zarin Liangsiri doing the same to Nathan Smith as Parker Cook had a 6-1, 6-1 loss to Eric Ventura.
On the doubles side, Tom Christou and Dylan Fournier were competitive, yet still turned back by Kai Wilson and Nick Fogu 6-4, 6-3, while Joe Johnston and Austin Fosberg fell to Ethan Haahr and Zach Pendergast 6-0, 6-4.
Both C-NS and Liverpool would have individuals competing in the Division I sectional tournament early this week, looking to advance to the state qualifier in Utica later in the week.
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