The annals of Baldwinsville football are rich with anecdotes of hard-earned triumphs, but they might not contain anything as remarkable and unlikely as what occurred Thursday night at Holland Stadium.
Trailing Auburn by 26 points in the second quarter, and trailing by 18 in the final period, the Bees somehow made it all the way back and pulled out a 50-46 victory over the Maroons.
For much of the night, B’ville struggled on defense, unable to contain Nasir Smith and the rest of Auburn’s attack, only to wear down the Maroons on both sides of the ball and score 43 points in the second half.
With two touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions already on the board in the fourth quarter, B’ville took over on its own 46-yard line with two minutes left, and Auburn was determined to slow down Bees tailback Ryan Ingerson, who finished with a career-best 244 yards on 25 carries.
With a series of runs by Ingerson and a fourth-down-and-one conversion by sophomore quarterback Ben Dwyer, the Bees moved it down to the one-yard line. Then, with 32 seconds left, Dwyer, getting one more push by his offensive line, powered into the end zone, followed by a two-point pass to Thor Sutphen.
Auburn was unable to answer, and the Bees, mostly through gaining 311 yards on the ground, improved to 2-1, knowing that it may have picked up momentum for the rest of the regular season after this comeback.
But it started out as a Maroons rout. During the first quarter, Auburn notched the only points when Derek Taylor threw a 10-yard TD pass to Jon Kocur, but soon that 6-0 margin seemed modest.
Smith owned much of the second quarter. Three different times, he finished off Maroons scoring drives by reaching the end zone on runs of three, 20 and eight yards, all of which left B’ville staring at a 26-0 deficit.
Had it stayed that way until halftime, B’ville may have not found the energy to roar back. Instead, a series of runs led to Ryan Ingerson’s 20-yard TD sprint that, with Dwyer’s extra point, made it 26-7, something far more manageable with two periods left.
During the third quarter, Ingerson added two more TD’s, none bigger than when he took a handoff at his own 10 and sprinted all the way on a 90-yard scoring jaunt.
Those plays, along with Dwyer’s five-yard scoring pass to Brandon Schmid, offset Smith’s fourth TD, on a 10-yard run. But Smith struck again early in the fourth quarter, scoring for a fifth time on a 19-yard run as he would finish the night with 188 yards on 28 carries.
Still, on this warm evening the Bees’ superior conditioning, forged by months spent building up stamina in the weight room and elsewhere, would pay off.
Down 46-28, B’ville inched closer thanks to Jack Buis finding the end zone from 13 yards out, plus a two-point pass from Dwyer to Sutphen.
After a defensive stop, B’ville got the ball near midfield. Then, from the Maroons’ 46, Dwyer lofted a pass that Mark Lannier caught and took all the way for a touchdown, also converting the two-pointer that made it 46-42, and set the stage for one more scoring drive that won it.
Dwyer completed seven of 11 passes for 121 yards. Defensively, Sutphen, Lannier and Gabe Horan led with seven tackles apiece, while John Petrelli had six tackles and recorded his team’s lone sack.
B’ville makes another road trip next Friday to take on Fayetteville-Manlius. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
