Fumbles and interceptions, bad snaps and missed field goals, a barrage of yellow flags – several pages could be filled with the mistakes Westhill and Marcellus made in their latest football showdown Friday night.
Yet no one could deny the intensity of the contest – and when it was done, the Warriors’ decade-long grip on this rivalry remained as it edged past the Mustangs 9-7.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Westhill head coach Gary Griffo said. “But we played our hearts out. It was a heck of a battle.”
All told, the Warriors have won 12 straight meetings with Marcellus, dating back to 2001. That includes a pair of playoff wins, most notably last November’s Section III Class B final in the Carrier Dome.
Every Mustang player back from 2009 was bent on ending this Westhill drought, and an overflow crowd poured into Marcellus to see if that would happen.
What they got, instead, was a first half that won’t fill any highlight reel, except to display what can go wrong in a football game when two charged-up defenses take over.
The carnage included five turnovers (three by Westhill, two by Marcellus), 10 total penalties, 18 plays that lost yardage and a neck injury that sent the Warriors’ Joe Snyder off on a stretcher.
Given this madness, it figured that the only points of the first half came when the Mustangs, having all kinds of trouble snapping the ball, sent a wild snap over the head of punter Nick Huss out of the end zone for a safety.
So Westhill led by the strange score of 2-0 at halftime and had to deal with the fact that Snyder was out and that top wide receiver Nathan Nigolian was nursing a sore foot.
Only after another exchange of turnovers in the third quarter did the Warriors’ offense finally put together a scoring drive. Colin Pedrotti’s fumble recovery set up a short march where key gains by Jalen Robinson and R.J. Chester set up Mark McAnaney’s eight-yard touchdown pass to Alex Peebles, Snyder’s replacement at wide receiver.
Down 9-0, Marcellus did not panic. Instead, it pieced together an 80-yard drive that featured Ricky Alfreds running the ball early, then Kyle Hastings hitting Chaz Hayes on a 38-yard pass before returning to Hayes for an eight-yard TD strike early in the fourth quarter.
Marcellus would get two chances to move ahead and end the Westhill jinx in the final minutes, both times moving into Warrior territory.
Both times, though, the Warriors would hold. First, it forced Chris Charles to try a 32-yard field goal with 5:27 left, but the kick fell just short of the crossbar.
Quickly, the Mustangs made a defensive stop, but it nearly was more. Rushed on third down, McAnaney threw right to Huss – and he could not hold to a possible interception with no one to prevent him from returning it for the go-ahead score.
Still, Marcellus got the ball back, and three long runs by Alfreds put them inside the Warriors’ 30. Here, Robinson made two huge back-to-back plays, knocking down one pass, then sacking Hastings before the Mustangs fumbled one last time with less than two minutes to play.
Hastings finished 12-for-19 for 135 yards, seven of the passes going to Hayes for 89 yards, while Alfreds got most of his 90 rushing yards (on 21 carries) in the second half.
Sophomore Jason Decker again stood out on defense with 10 tackles and a fumble recovery. Zach Wiley had nine tackles, with Hayes and Steve Raven earning interceptions and Huss also earning a fumble recovery.
It won’t get easier for the Mustangs, as it visits Homer Friday after the Trojans started 2-0 by earning early-season wins over Skaneateles and Solvay. A day later, Westhill will visit Hannibal, a Class B West newcomer off to an 0-2 start.