Claiming the Section III Class A championship required the East Syracuse Minoa football team to make two massive comebacks.

One was pulled off – but the other proved out of reach.

A week after rallying from a 25-point deficit to stun Whitesboro in the sectional semifinals, the Spartans went to the Carrier Dome Friday night and, in the sectional title game, fell into similar trouble against Indian River, this time unable to escape in a 40-6 defeat to the Warriors.

Essentially, ESM doomed itself with three first-quarter turnovers, all of which led to touchdowns for IR. Also, as head coach Kevin DeParde pointed out, his team didn’t win the battles on the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball, a must in championship games.

Prior to that, ESM had taken comfort from the fact that it played the Warriors on close terms in a 32-21 defeat on Sept. 12 and had, in the ensuing two months, seen Jake Rodman take over at quarterback and flourish.

But Rodman, and all of the other Spartans, were dealing with an IR side that remembered how it lost a 21-20 thriller to Carthage in last year’s sectional final and wanted redemption on this same Dome turf.

Densel Barnes began the Warriors’ surge, picking off Rodman on ESM’s second possession. Then Barnes, who doubles as IR’s quarterback, threw a 45-yard pass to Daquan Brown. Four plays later, Tyler Stoley scored on a five-yard run, putting IR ahead to stay.

It got worse for ESM when Fred Johnson fumbled on the Spartans’ ensuing possession, and the Warriors’ Lawrence Borce recovered. It took just two plays for IR to cash in as diminutive (5-foot-4, 135 pounds) Romel Washington ran 30 yards on a sweep and went seven yards for the touchdown.

Starting to hurry his throws in the face of pressure from IR’s quick defensive front, Rodman tossed a second interception, to Gary Ruckman, late in the first quarter. Barnes took off on a 20-yard TD run on the first play of the second period, and ESM trailed 20-0.

All through the first half, ESM found it difficult to run or throw, leading to a series of three-and-outs. One of them led to yet another Warrior touchdown when Barnes, from the Spartans’ 29, escaped an arm tackle in the backfield and took off to the end zone.

Held to one first down and six total yards so far, ESM finally broke through with Johnson taking an option pitch and going 54 yards for a TD with 2:49 left in the half. The extra point was missed, but a stop right before halftime meant it was 26-6 going to the break.

Everyone on the Spartans’ side knew it had overcome a larger halftime gap against Whitesboro. But IR knew it, too, and wanted no part of another comeback.

Accordingly, the Warriors took the second-half kickoff and marched 67 yards, mostly through the sweeps and counter runs it had used all night. But on fourth-and-two from the ESM 13, Barnes changed up, threw over the defense and found Brown for his lone TD pass of the night, making it 33-6.

After yet another three-and-out, IR got it again, and needed just three plays to find the end zone one more time, Washington going the final 18 yards for his second TD of the night.

With that, the Spartans’ dreams of a first sectional championship since 2011 faded away. Even a long Spartans drive that reached IR’s five-yard line in the fourth quarter got stopped without any points.

As the Warriors advanced to face Union-Endicott in next Friday’s regional final at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium, ESM ended a 6-4 campaign that had all kinds of ups and downs, from an 0-2 start to a first-place finish in the Class A American division.

And it culminated with that remarkable rally in the Class A semifinal against Whitesboro, a 38-35 game that moved DeParde to 100 career wins and gave all of the Spartans’ players a memory for a lifetime – even if it didn’t lead to a sectional championship.