They were looking to start turnarounds at West Genesee and Solvay. At Jordan-Elbridge, the task was different – maintaining recent successes with a lot of new faces on hand.
None of these football teams were able to prevail in their season openers on Friday night, though.
At home, West Genesee fell to Nottingham 28-7, while Solvay, in Todd Lisi’s debut as head coach, did not get on the board in a 29-0 defeat to Chittenango. J-E, meanwhile, went to General Brown and hung close for a while before the Lions’ superior depth led to a second-half runaway and a 71-30 defeat for the Eagles.
Fans at Mike Messere Field got a glimpse of WG’s promise when, in the first quarter, Ahmad Hasan intercepted a pass from Nottingham’s Joven Jones deep in the Bulldogs’ own end and returned it 13 yards for a touchdown.
Yet that was the only points the Wildcats would earn all evening, its offense constantly stifled by a Bulldogs defense determined to give Fred Wheeler a victory in his head coaching debut.
Jones, in fact, got his own TD from an interception return of 36 yards in the opening period before hurting the Wildcats on the other side of the ball with a 68-yard scoring pass to Carthell Flowers. Kyle Smith’s two-point run made it 14-7 in Nottingham’s favor going to halftime.
Flowers returned in the third quarter to record a 27-yard TD run, and JaQue Hines clinched it a quarter later for Nottingham, scoring from six yards out.
Over at Chittenango, Solvay was trying to put all of the promise it showed in the pre-season, and all of the talk of improvement and rebirth under Lisi, into verifiable results – but the Bears had other plans for the Bearcats.
In a decisive second quarter, Chittenango broke the 0-0 tie with a touchdown and then surprised Solvay with an onside kick that led to more points. Down 15-0 at the break, the Bearcats were unable to provide an answer as the Bears nearly doubled its margin in the late going.
Points were not a problem for Jordan-Elbridge as it ventured up north to Dexter, where General Brown, a traditional Class C power, was ready to test the Eagles.
From the start, J-E’s defense got rattled by the Lions’ duo of quarterback Thomas Dupee and running back Dominic Lutz. Dupee ran for one TD and threw a 45-yard scoring pass to Lutz, who also converted on a 50-yard run – and all of this in the first quarter.
Amid all this, Dale Wagner did get the Eagles on the board with a four-yard TD run. Then J-E pulled within a score, 29-22, by halftime thanks to quarterback Dominic Walborn scoring twice on 13-yard scrambles.
When Dan Kuenhle returned a Dupee interception 35 yards in the third quarter, it was supposed to keep J-E in it. Instead, it triggered a General Brown avalanche.
Using its superior depth to wear down the Eagles’ two-way players, the Lions scored six touchdowns in the last two periods, two of them by Richard Dawkins on runs of 53 and 32 yards. Dupee added another scoring run and 30-yard TD pass to Lutz as Andrew Thigles (from 49 yards) and Tyler Keefer (from 42 yards) also found the end zone on long runs.
