Kingston bounced in Amsterdam tournament
Undefeated North Syracuse squad dominates Tigers in opening round of Amsterdam Holiday Tournament
AMSTERDAM, N.Y. » Amani Free and Jessica Cook combined for 48 points Wednesday, leading state-ranked Cicero-North Syracuse to a 62- 45 victory over Kingston High in the Amsterdam Girls Basketball Holiday Tournament.
Cicero, unbeaten (5- 0) and ranked ninth in Class AA by the state sportswriters association, came out hot and capitalized on a Tiger team that struggled from the start.
“The first half could be summed up by awful execution. It took us more than 20 seconds to set up a play and we were not running our fast break,” said Kingston coach Steve Garner.
Cook scored 10 of her 20 points in the game’s first four minutes. Free finished with 28.
“We watched a good team play baskeball in the first half,” remarked Garner, whose team trailed 35-15 at halftime.
“We was no aggressiveness, no attacking to our game. We were lucky to be down 20. We were awful and they hit everything.”
Kingston, led by Chloe Chaffin (21 points) and Jaid Harrell (11), regrouped in the second half to make a game of it.
“We picked up on defense and got lots of steals,” Garner noted.
The Tigers rallied to get within eight of Cicero early in the fourth quarter, but ran out of gas down the stretch.
Kingston, playing its first game since their Disney World Trip 11
days ago, is now 3-2 overall. The Tigers are back in Amsterdam 1:30 p.m. Thursday, playing Gerard Filion High. CICERO-NORTH SYRACUSE (62)—Siech- en 0 0-2 0, White 0 1-2 1, Williams 0 0- 0 0, Kingsley 0 0- 0 0, Feeney 0 0- 0 0, Miller 0 0- 0 0, Vassallo 3 0- 0 8, Ingram 0 2-2 2, Free 11 3- 6 28, Cook 8 4-11 20, Rowe 1 1-1 3. Totals 23 11-24 62, KINGSTON (45)—Burke 1 0-0 2, Alonso 0 0- 0 0, Spinelli 1 0-1 2, Dorsey 1 0-2 2, A. Cook 2 1-2 , Amato 0 0- 0 0, Chaffin 8 4-5 21, Myers-McCarthy 0 0-0 0, Herzog 1 0- 0 2, Harrell 5 0-1 11. Totals 19 5-11 45. Cicero-N. Syracuse 17 18 12 15—62 Kingston 9 6 21 9—45 3-point field goals: Free 3, Vassallo 2; Chaffin, Harrell. Team records: Cicero-North Syracuse 5- 0; Kingston 3-2.