Jeremy Perry had a bloody elbow from all of the turf burn he received, and ice on his left hand at the end of Friday night’s football showdown between East Syracuse Minoa and Jamesville-DeWitt, a reflection of the hard work required by Perry and his teammates to retain the upper hand in his neighborhood rivalry.
The Spartans nearly blew a 14-point first-half lead, only to restore it in the fourth quarter and move on to beat the Red Rams 28-13, seizing early control of the Class A American division race in the process.
Just as he has done all season, Perry shouldered plenty of responsibility. The 6-foot-4, 240-pound senior rushed for 238 yards and scored two touchdowns, giving him 11 for the season, and also earned a pair of sacks to lead an aggressive ESM defense.
“Jeremy’s been special,” said Spartans head coach Kevin DeParde. “He’s been easy to coach, and he has fun on the field.”
In fact, the entire Spartan squad had fun for much of the first half, little dreaming how tense it would get when one play turned a potential rout into a nail-biter.
Forcing a pair of fumbles (each recovered by Gabe Holloman) and dominating at the line of scrimmage, ESM’s defense mostly contained a J-D squad that had scored 76 points winning its first two games of the season over New Hartford and Fulton.
Late in the first quarter, Perry’s first big play, a 47-yard run, set up his own four-yard scoring run. Then, lining up a tight end, he caught a swing pass from Jake Rodman and went 54 yards, breaking tackles, setting up Rodman’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Darian Crossman early in the second period.
As time wound down in the half, the Spartans were moving again, situated at J-D’s 20-yard line. Another score might have put the Rams away.
Instead, Rodman threw a pass to the sideline that J-D’s Quentin Curry picked off at the 19. Picking up speed, Curry went all the way, 81 yards, to the other end zone with five seconds to play. Instead of a massive deficit, the Rams only trailed 14-7 at the break.
In the locker room, said DeParde, “we had to shake things up a little bit and challenge them. We changed a lot of stuff.’
But those changes didn’t work right away. J-D took the second-half kickoff and marched 67 yards in seven plays for its lone scoring drive of the night, Eli Williams streaking the last 32 yards up the middle on a draw play for a touchdown.
The potential tying extra point banged off the left goalpost, but the Rams, trailing 14-13, quickly forced a punt and drove back to ESM’s 18-yard line, ready to go in front.
Just at that moment, though, the Spartans forced a turnover on downs and then, offensively, went back to Perry for a series of powerful runs. On fourth-and-goal early in the fourth quarter, Rodman found Brandon Santillo over the middle for a nine-yard TD pass.
On the first play of J-D’s ensuing possession, the Rams again fumbled, and Jeff Loder fell on it. More Perry magic followed, as he converted a third down with a 17-yard shovel pass and then rumbled 16 yards to the end zone with 9:40 to play.
DeParde said he knows that he is giving Perry lots of responsibility, on both sides of the ball, and that he must keep himself in top condition, given than every future ESM foe will try to contain him.
That will include Fowler, whom ESM will take on next Friday as J-D, who like the Spartans have a 2-1 record, host Carthage in the first game played on the school’s new artificial turf field.
