CENTRAL NEW YORK – Heading into its most important stretch of the season, the Christian Brothers Academy football team is displaying prime form.
Fayetteville-Manlius fully experienced this on its home turf Friday night, unable to get on the scoreboard and unable in any way to stop the unbeaten, state Class AA no. 8-ranked Brothers in a 59-0 decision.
This proved quite a contrast to the wild 49-40 battle with Corning the week before where CBA had to score twice in the fourth quarter to beat the Hawks, with Porter Matt going 21-for-35 for 352 yards and five touchdowns.
Matt spread it around in that game, too, with no receiver earning more than Jamier Handford’s 96 yards on six catches as Syair Torrence had seven catches for 91 yards. Daunte Bacheyie caught a pair of TD passes as Amir Butler had 12 tackles on defense, helped by Jason Brunson, Andrew Cooney and Marquan Saddler getting 10 tackles apiece.
Against an F-M side still searching for its first win of the season, the Brothers moved the ball at will throughout the first half, building a big margin and allowing the starters to rest late.
So CBA will have a 4-0 record going into next Saturday’s clash with 3-0 Liverpool at Alibrandi Stadium, followed on Oct. 6 by a showdown with state no. 10-ranked Cicero-North Syracuse at Bragman Stadium.
Meanwhile, East Syracuse Minoa and Jamesville-DeWitt both got their own wins at home on Friday, the Spartans topping Nottingham 22-12 and the Red Rams shutting out Oswego 34-0.’
ESM built upon its 47-24 win over PSLA-Fowler on Sept. 15 with another solid effort against a Syracuse city opponent, netting a trio of touchdowns and only allowing Nottingham to find the end zone twice.
As this went on, J-D gave new head coach John Barlow his first win at the helm with a strong all-around performance which included at least one touchdown in every quarter.
Anthony Guidone’s eight-yard scoring run set the tone and Roman Spack added a TD to make it 14-0 before the first quarter was done. Then Guidone threw a 44-yard scoring pass to Terrell Willis in the second period and Spack’s two-point run extended the margin to 22-0.
Spack returned to add two more touchdowns in the last two periods, J-D breaking a two-game skid as it is home again next Friday to face Sherburne-Earlville.
Bishop Grimes added to the success of the weekend when it defeated Onondaga 22-14 in eight-man football to improve its record to 2-0. The Cobras will get tested this Saturday when it faces defending sectional champion Morrisville-Eaton, who is off to a 3-0 start.
