Cicero — With a mixture of pride and sadness, the Liverpool football team trudged off the field Saturday night at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium, full of a sense of accomplishment of all it had done, but also ruing that it could not do just a little bit more.
In a tense state Class AA semifinal, the Warriors hung right with Section V powerhouse Rochester Aquinas all the way to the end, the difference between them a single point as the Little Irish prevailed by a 17-16 margin.
All game long, the Irish’s top state ranking and undefeated record did not intimidate Liverpool, who put itself in position to reach its first-ever state title game, but got denied when a possible tying extra point went wide with 3:53 to play.
“I’m so proud of my kids,” said Warriors head coach Dave Mancuso. “They just battled hard, and played to their potential.”
And it culminated in a fourth-quarter drive that nearly produced overtime.
Trailing 17-10, Liverpool took over on its own 10-yard line with 10:28 to play in the fourth quarter. Runs by Jaydakis Scott and Daryl Nixon got the Warriors moving toward midfield.
Facing a fourth-down-and-four at the Irish 40, Jordan Caviness threw to the left and Michael Wright, despite double coverage, caught it at the 22.
Three more runs moved the ball to the Aquinas 10, where on first-and-goal Caviness faked a handoff to Scott and, when the Irish defense ran left toward Scott, Caviness bootlegged right and won the race to the corner of the end zone.
The drive had covered 90 yards and more than six minutes of clock. Trailing by one, Mancuso said he gave lots of thought to foregoing a tying extra point for a go-ahead two-point conversion before deciding to try for the tie.
“I thought we could beat them in overtime,” said Mancuso. They (Aquinas) were starting to wear down.”
continued — So Patrick Delgobbo went out to attempt the tying PAT. But a high snap, combined with a rush from the left side of the Aquinas line, forced Delgobbo to hook the kick wide of the uprights.
Now it was up to Liverpool’s defense to try and make one more stop. But the Irish’s Penn State-bound senior quarterback, Jake Zembiec, completed a third-down pass to Earnest Edwards, and another first down allowed the Irish to run out the clock, since the Warriors were out of time-outs.
Right from the start, Liverpool’s defense faced the awesome task of trying to contain an Aquinas offense full of top college prospects, including Zembiec, Edwards, wide receiver Jamir Jones and running back Tyler Olbrich.
At first, the Irish had little trouble with this, taking the opening kickoff and going 67 yards, ending it with Zembiec’s 10-yard scoring pass to Jones.
But Liverpool countered with a long march of its own, mixing runs and passes all the way to the Aquinas 11 before the Irish halted the drive, the Warriors settling for Delgobbo’s 28-yard field goal.
It was here that the Warriors’ defense began to assert itself. Early in the second quarter, Dietrick Roberson recovered an Irish fumble at his own 32.
While that didn’t lead to anything, Matt Rioux’s interception of Zembiec at midfield and 37-yard return did pay off, Rashon Crenshaw going the final nine yards for the go-ahead TD.
Still clinging to that 10-7 lead, Liverpool appeared to be in good shape when a punt forced Aquinas to take over at its own 15 with 1:10 left in the half.
That was enough time, though, for Zembiec to march the Irish 85 yards in just five plays, the last of them a screen pass that Olbrich turned into a 32-yard dash to the end zone with 11.4 seconds to play.
continued — Trailing 14-10 at the break, Liverpool wouldn’t let Aquinas get away, stalling a third-quarter drive at the Warriors’ seven as Collin Cup converted a 24-yard field goal and then making several key stops to keep the margin at one score.
This led to that long Liverpool drive, a kick that veered off target – and the end to a season that produced a first Section III Class AA title in 17 years and a come-from-behind regional win over Elmira, something that no defeat, no matter how close or disappointing, could erase.
“When you leave it all on the field, you have a lot to be proud of,” said Mancuso. “This team won’t be forgotten for a long time.”
