ONONDAGA COUNTY – For nearly five months, all the news about the Skaneateles football team had nothing to do with the game itself.
But with Joe Sidoni having temporarily won his battle to remain head coach, attention finally turned to the gridiron on the last day of March as Skaneateles hosted Cazenovia at Hyatt Stadium.
And in this first of two scheduled clashes between the two sets of Lakers, Skaneateles took charge and shut out Cazenovia 18-0, kicking off a full week of local football action.
Amid cold, wet and windy conditions, Skaneateles jumped in front 7-0 when James Musso found Patrick Herr for a 24-yard touchdown pass midway through the first quarter.
As it turned out, Cazenovia’s best chance to get in the game was its ensuing possession, where Patrick Linck’s 71-yard kick return set up a short drive that reached the Skaneateles one-yard line before the visiting Lakers got stopped on fourth-down-and-goal.
Skaneateles then drove 99 yards to double the lead to 12-0, mixing runs and passes before Musso connected with Herr again on the TD, this one from 11 yards out.
The host Lakers tacked on a third-quarter TD on Grayson Brunelle’s one-yard run and, overall, accumulated 440 total yards to Cazenovia’s 29.
Musso completed 14 of 26 passes for 289 yards, mostly throwing it to Herr, who had six catches for 191 yards. Brunelle ran for 144 yards on 32 carries.
A day later, Solvay, who won the sectional Class B title in 2019, hosted Bishop Ludden, and it was the Gaelic Knights getting the best of the Bearcats, building a big early lead and hanging on to win 27-20.
Ludden jumped out 13-0 in the first quarter as Evan Cervantes scored on a 16-yard run and Jarin Beauford caught a five-yard TD pass from Nazier Kinsey. Kinsey scored on a three-yard run to extend the Gaelic Knights’ lead to 21-0 by halftime.
Despite this, it took Kinsey’s 48-yard TD pass to Beauford in the third quarter to fend off Solvay’s late push. Zach Bowen scored on runs of three and eight yards with Carter Lee getting a one-yard TD run in between.
Solvay’s neighbors from Westhill would find its own success in Saturday’s season opener against Institute of Technology Central, battling past the Eagles 18-6.
With the game still scoreless in the second quarter, Westhill took charge with a pair of drives that led to touchdowns, Miguel Monic scoring from six yards out and on a one-yard plunge.
They stayed 12-0 until the fourth quarter, when the Warriors clinched it thanks to its defense, Myshawn Thomas intercepting a pass at midfield and returning it 52 yards for a TD.
