It wasn’t enough that the Baldwinsville football team delivered one more first-rate effort in front of the home folks at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium. Malik Burks had to squeeze some more history into a season already full of milestones.
The Bees’ 35-14 win over Fayetteville-Manilus in the opening round of the Section III Class AA playoffs was impressive enough, as B’ville, no. 7 in the state AA rankings, moved to 8-0.
It’s what Burks did during this wet, windy night that made it more special. Carrying the ball 29 times, Burks ran for 311 yards, and with that total went past 2,000 yards for the season – 2,047, to be exact. Also, Burks finished with three touchdowns, which moves his season total to 26.
B’ville came in as overwhelming favorites. For one thing, it had beaten F-M 49-27 back on Sept. 11, where Burks had run wild against the Hornets’ defense.
And while the Bees romped through the regular season undefeated, F-M was 0-4 before it even won a game, and needed an overtime victory over West Genesee just to get into the playoffs.
Despite all this, the Hornets would not depart the scene without making B’ville work hard, at least in the early going.
With Burks again picking up large chunks of yardage, the Bees moved to the Hornets’ six-yard line in the first quarter, from where quarterback Niko Manning rolled right and found tight end Nick Alenciewicz in the end zone. Mark Stanard converted the extra point and would go five-for-five on PAT’s all night – impressive, given the wet conditions.
F-M didn’t get discouraged, though, putting together its own sustained drive and, early in the second quarter, tying it 7-7 on quarterback Mike O’Neil’s one-yard TD sneak and a successful PAT.
For the rest of the half, the Bees took control, making a series of stops on the defensive side and putting together one more drive that Burks finished off with a six-yard run.
So while the Bees had a small amount of concern with a modest 14-7 advantage at halftime, it would do, again, what it has done so many times this fall – namely, take over after the break.
Twice in the third quarter, B’ville would score, using a pair of long drives to wear F-M’s defense down. Burks scored his second TD of the night on a 24-yard run, and Ben Paprocki found the end zone from nine yards out to make it 28-7.
Fittingly, Burks provided the exclamation point in the fourth quarter, using a 57-yard touchdown run to get him past the 2,000-yard milestone. F-M would add one more score on Bryan Hill’s 38-yard run.
Now the Bees prepare for a Class AA semifinal against Corcoran (6-2), who needed two overtimes and two key blocked field goals to survive Cicero-North Syracuse 27-21 in its opening-round game.
The winner gets Henninger or CBA in the Nov. 7 final at the Carrier Dome. Both AA games are at CNS’s Bragman Stadium, with B’ville playing Corcoran at 8 p.m., after the Black Knights and Brothers square off.
