On the one hand, the Skaneateles football team has reached a point where it can compete with, and beat, Class B West foes like Marcellus, as it proved Friday night when the two long-time rivals got together again.
On the other hand, the Lakers’ 20-14 defeat to the Mustangs left a sour taste because Skaneateles had a month’s worth of chances to make it all the way back from a 13-point deficit, but could not quite pull it off.
Going in, the Lakers were banged up. Aside from the switch at quarterback (Conor Herr for Trent Green), it also had standouts like James Smith and Brandon Barron restricted to offensive duty and top defender Luke Dranscak playing with a cast on his left arm.
Still, here was a chance to improve to 3-1 and leap right into the B West division championship race – and end a long drought against their nemeses in green and white.
They would trade scoring drives late in the first quarter. Marcellus used two big plays – Kyle Hastings’ 27-yard pass to Chaz Hayes and Jeff Ames’ 39-yard run on a reverse – to set up Hastings scoring on an 11-yard bootleg.
Down 6-0 after a missed extra point, the Lakers quickly answered, as a long Max Weiss kick return set up a 54-yard drive. Key passes from Kerr to Jacob Cooney and Tyler Saunders led to Herr finding Smith for a 16-yard TD pass on a slant. Saunders’ extra point put Skaneateles ahead 7-6.
Marcellus appeared to take over in the second quarter, putting together a pair of scoring drives as Hastings scored again on a five-yard run and connected with Hayes on a 16-yard TD pass.
The Lakers trailed 20-7 at the break, and Marcellus took the second-half kickoff and appeared ready for another touchdown before a motion penalty at the one-yard line, and a botched fake field goal, gave Skaneateles some new life.
For the rest of the game, Herr would constantly move the Lakers into Mustang territory. It led to nothing in the third quarter, though, as Skaneateles was stopped on one fourth down inside the Marcellus 20, and Eric Lester intercepted Herr minutes later.
At the same time, the Mustangs were having trouble hanging on to the ball, Skaneateles recovering a pair of fumbles, one of them on a fourth-down play near midfield in the fourth quarter. From there, Herr found Saunders for 28 yards to set up an eight-yard scoring pass to Pat Roberts with 6:42 to play.
Yet another Mustang fumble by Ricky Alfreds (who had 159 yards on 23 carries) at the Lakers’ 12-yard line with 3:45 left gave Skaneateles a chance to win it.
Herr moved his team to midfield, but with 1:32 to play his pass slipped through the hands of a Laker receiver and into the grasp of the Mustangs’ Nick Huss at the Marcellus 45-yard line, from where it ran out the clock.
For the night, Herr threw 42 times, completing 19 passes for 209 yards, with Barron earning a team-high eight catches for 72 yards. Seth Weiss had 59 rushing yards on just four carries.
Rory Callahan again had a superb effort on the defensive side, piling up 15 tackles, seven of them solo efforts. Chris Wise had seven tackles, including a sack, with Ryan Sherman adding six tackles. Drancsak, despite his cast, had five tackles and recovered a fumble.
Skaneateles returns home next Friday to face Hannibal. Game time is 7 p.m.
