MORRISVILLE — Center State Conference rivals Frankfort-Schuyler and West Canada Valley entered Section III’s girls basketball playoffs with the top two seeds in Class C and losses only to each other, but a potential third meeting in the tournament finals won’t happen after Hamilton defeated Frankfort Schuyler in the second game of Tuesday’s semifinal doubleheader at SUNY-Morrisville.
Hamilton, seeded fourth in an 18-team field, started strong, finished stronger, and beat Frankfort-Schuyler 60-37, settling the score for an earlier loss during the regular season. No. 2 West Canada Valley had beaten Weedsport 58-37 earlier in the evening.
With Tuesday’s loss, Frankfort-Schuyler (20-2) was the first No. 1 seed eliminated this season from six classes of playoffs for boys and girls in Section III. Bishop Ludden-Grimes of Syracuse was also eliminated Tuesday in Class AAA.
Hamilton (20-3) and West Canada Valley (22-1) will play for the sectional title Saturday at 11 a.m. in the first of five March 7 championship games for girls at SRC Arena on the Syracuse campus of Onondaga Community College.
The Emerald Knights will be playing in a sectional basketball final for the fourth consecutive season, a streak that includes a 55-50 win over West Canada Valley in the 2024 Class C championship game. Current senior Logan Langel led Hamilton with 21 points in that game, while Brooke Reddington, now a sophomore, scored 15 for West Canada Valley.
Saturday’s schedule has the Class A game between undefeated Notre Dame of Utica and Christian Brothers Academy of Syracuse second, followed by Copenhagen and LaFargeville in Class D, Rome Free Academy and Baldwinsville in Class AAA, and Little Falls and Marcellus in Class B.
The boys will play five finals Sunday, and the Class AA finals will be played as a boys-and-girls doubleheader Friday evening at the same venue.
Class C: Hamilton 60, Frankfort-Schuyler 37
Hamilton jumped out to a 15-3 lead to start Tuesday’s game. Frankfort-Schuyler caught up once, tying the score at 19 midway through the second quarter, but the Emerald Knights led by five points at halftime stretched that to 25 in the third quarter.
“They were able to keep their composure when we made our run,” Frankfort-Schuyler coach Jeff Adasek said. “The experience will help us in similar situations in the future.”
Frankfort-Schuyler had played from behind and beaten Hamilton 49-40 in a regular season, finishing that January 22 game with a 17-2 run in the fourth quarter and earning the 12th of 13 consecutive wins to start the season.
“We were well aware they were capable of doing that,” Hamilton coach Joe LePage said.
The Emerald Knights have won 10 of 11 games since that defeat.
Frankfort-Schuyler had beaten Hamilton 1-0 in the section’s Class C soccer final in the fall. Hamilton had also been a sectional soccer finalist in 2024, and the Emerald Knights won sectional and state championships in softball last spring.
Logan Langel led Hamilton with 18 points and seven assists Tuesday. Pyper McEwan added 14 points, Rihana Dye and Abbey Hope each scored 10, and Cameron Cleveland had eight points, 12 rebounds and four blocked shots.
Madelyne Reid had 12 points and six rebounds for Frankfort-Schuyler, and Leigh Ferguson had 10 and eight.
Hamilton was the No. 1 seed in 2025 and defeated 46-31 in the sectional semifinals before being beaten 44-34 by Cooperstown in the championship game. The Emerald Knights defeated West Canada Valley in the Class D semifinals in 2023 and were beaten by Poland in the final.
Class C: West Canada Valley 58, Weedsport 37
The West Canada Valley Nighthawks shook off a sluggish offensive start Tuesday and rallied past Weedsport for a 58-37 victory at the site of last season’s heart-breaking finale.
“We’re absolutely happier than we were walking out of this gym last year,” an admittedly relieved West Canada Valley coach Theresa Synakowski said with a smile. “Almost any kid on the roster this year played against Cooperstown last year, and they know what it felt like leaving here last year after that loss.”
The 2025 Nighthawks had trailed Cooperstown by 11 points after three quarters in last year’s semifinal, but lost 60-58 with the Hawkeyes breaking a last-minute tie with a three-pointer and hitting all of their foul shots at the end.
Brooke Reddington scored 33 points and grabbed 10 rebounds Tuesday, helping West Canada Valley pull away in a game that was tied at 12 in the second quarter. The Nighthawks outscored Weedsport’s Wolverines 35-9 from that point to the end of the third quarter.
Katy Michael added 10 points and 12 rebounds, both matching season highs for the sophomore, Aubree Keiffer had four points, eight assists and six rebounds, and Aubrey Reddington scored seven points.Megan House led Weedsport with 10 points.
Class A: Notre Dame 73, New Hartford 44
Utica’s Notre Dame Jugglers remain undefeated, and the No. 1 Class A seed will play for a third consecutive Section III title Saturday following Monday’s 73-44 semifinal win over the Jamesville-DeWitt Red Rams.
The Jugglers (22-0) led by 20 points at halftime and won for the 31st time in 32 games dating back to last season when they were the runners-up in the state Class A tournament. Senior Ella Trinkaus scored 39 points and went over 2,400 for her career four days after passing 2012 Cicero-North Syracuse graduate Breanna Stewart (2,367) for third place on the Section III girls scoring list.
“We all set goals back at the start of the season and this is just one small step toward a larger goal we want to achieve as a team,” said Trinkaus who also had 12 rebounds, six assists and five steals.
Erin Trinkaus added 14 points and 11 rebounds, and Lily Johnson scored 11 points for Notre Dame which won sectional and state championships in Class B in 2024 before moving up one class last season.
The Jugglers led by as many as 37 points in the fourth quarter.
Gia Kinsey scored 14 points to lead Jamesville-DeWitt (17-5).
Notre Dame plays Christian Brothers Academy of Syracuse for the sectional title Saturday afternoon at SRC Arena in Syracuse. The Jugglers were 66-49 winners the last time the teams met at Baldwinsville’s 2022 tip-off tournament.
Class A: Christian Brothers Academy 59, New Hartford 38
The second-seeded Brothers of Syracuse’s Christian Brothers Academy started the second half with a run that pushed their lead into double figures on the way to a 59-38 victory over New Hartford in the first Class A semifinal at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School Monday.
The Brothers (18-4) had led by seven points at halftime and as many as nine in the first half. The margin was 18 at the end of the third quarter.
Cara Macaluso and Ryann Murphy led Christian Brothers Academy with 18 and 17 points, respectively.Mikayla Jaros scored 16 points for New Hartford (13-10).
Class AAA: Rome Free Academy 64, Bishop Ludden-Grimes 51
Rome Free Academy’s Black Knights outscored Bishop Ludden-Grimes 20-9 in the third quarter and 40-21 in the second half Tuesday and defeated the Gaelic Knights 64-51 at Syracuse’s Corcoran High School to knock the No. 1 seed out of Section III’s Class AAA playoffs.
With the win, the Black Knights (17-5), seeded fifth, earned the spot opposite No. 2 Baldwinsville (17-3), a 56-41 winner over Cicero-North Syracuse earlier in the evening, in Saturday’s sectional final. Rome Free Academy had a previous seedings upset when it defeated No. 4 Liverpool 60-50 on the road in the quarterfinals, and the Black Knights have now won 11 games in a row.
Azmira Moncoeur led four Rome Free Academy scorers in double figures with 19 points Tuesday. Zamora Council added 15 points, Isabella Cunningham scored 12, and Taniyah Outten had 10.
Riley Abernethy scored 22 points to lead the Gaelic Knights who had led the game 30-24 at halftime. Bishop Ludden-Grimes (16-5) had beaten Rome Free Academy 60-48 at the Downtown Classic in December; Black Knights senior Haylee Bostwick scored her 1,000th point in that game.
Baldwinsville trailed Cicero-North Syracuse by one point after the first quarter of the first game but outscored the Northstars in each of the other three.
Class B: Little Falls 51, Holland Patent 43
The third-seeded Little Falls Mounties played their way into Section III’s Class B final with a 51-43 win over No. 2 Holland Patent in the first game at Central Square High School Monday and will play for a title Saturday against No. 1 Marcellus.
Adrians Izzo led Little Falls (13-9) with 23 points against Holland Patent (10-12) while Andy-Lynn Podlas added 12 and Gianna Almaviva scored 11 in the Mounties’ seventh win in eight games. Izzo, the team’s leading scorer at 21.4 points per game, has topped 20 in six of those eight contests.
Marcellus (20-2) enters the final with a five-game win streak that includes Monday’s 63-38 victory over Skaneateles. Included in their streak is the Mustangs’ 61-43 win in Little Falls in a Presidents Day matinee two weeks ago.
Tenly Baker led Marcellus with 18 points against Skaneateles, and 2,000-point scorer CeCe Powell had 14. Powell (26) and Baker (22) scored 48 of the Mustangs’ 61 points in the Little Falls game while Izzo countered with a career-high 32 for Little Falls.
The Mustangs are unbeaten against Class B competition this season, having lost only to Bishop Ludden-Grimes and Notre Dame, the No. 1 seeds in classes AAA and A, and winners of the last two Class B sectional crowns; Notre Dame moved up one class after winning sectional and state titles in 2024, and 2025 sectional champion Bishop Grimes merged with Bishop Grimes at the end of the last school year.
This article originally appeared on Times Telegram: Section III girls in Syracuse for basketball’s championship Saturday
Reporting by Jon Rathbun, Herkimer Times Telegram / Times Telegram
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