CENTRAL NEW YORK – Only one play kept a trio of area football teams from a clean sweep of season-opening games on Friday night.
West Genesee, attempting to go for victory in the last seconds of its game at Whitesboro, could not quite pull it off and took a 27-26 defeat to the Warriors.
This followed an evening where Westhill dominated visiting Oswego 53-6 and Solvay, bringing back most of it starting lineup from 2021, turned back Mexico 27-18.
The biggest drama was at Whitesboro, where WG twice came back in the fourth quarter of a back-and-forth battle with Whitesboro.
Trailing by six, the Wildcats drove down the field and scored on Vincent Firenze’s one-yard plunge with 6:41 left, but the extra point was missed, so it was 20-20.
Whitesboro immediately countered, driving to WG’s nine before Kyle Meier found the end zone for his third touchdown of the night, and the PAT was successful.
Now down 27-20, WG used most of the remaining clock to drive to the Warriors’ 13. Then, with 6.5 seconds left, Firenze quickly fired left and found a wide-open Dom Burris in the end zone, reducing the margin to one.
Deciding to go for two points and possible victory, the Wildcats lined up – but Whitesboro stopped it, and was able to hang on, overcoming Firenze scoring twice on his own and throwing a pair of TD passes, including one to Anthony Baggett of 17 yards.
Solvay, who won just one game in all of 2021, matched that total against a Mexico side that won the Independent division a season ago under the lights at Al Merola Field.
Jordan Dippold fired up the home crowd with an 84-yard scoring dash in the opening minutes, and then connected with Luis Mojica on a 40-yard TD pass that made it 14-0 before the first quarter was done.
Though shut out the rest of the half, Solvay extended its 14-6 margin in the third quarter when Jaysin Bliss scored on a 10-yard run, part of a night where he burned the Tigers for 153 yards on 19 carries.
Not done, the Tigers closed the gap to 20-12 entering the fourth quarter, and were driving toward a possible tying score when Jeff Sharpe stepped in front of a Mexico pass and took it back 85 yards for a clinching TD.
No such drama was found at Westhill, where the Warriors wanted to show everyone, including Oswego, just how much it had improved and grown since going 3-5 a season ago.
It was 20-0 after one quarter, Westhill three times finding the end zone as Brody Clayton (13-yard run), Lee Hynes (eight-yard run) and Taden Chester (11-yard pas from Elijah Welch) all scored.
Welch’s second TD pass, 23 yards to Collin White, along with Keller O’Hern’s three-yard run, made it 34-0 by halftime, and Chester scored on defense in the third quarter when he ran back a Buccaneers interception 76 yards for six points.
Overall, Welch threw eight passes, completing seven of them for 119 yards while gaining 61 yards on four carries. White had four catches for 68 yards.
