Road trips on successive evenings did not test the Fayetteville-Manlius and Christian Brothers Academy football teams all that much as they inch closer to a possible post-season clash with each other.
It started Thursday night, with the Hornets going to Auburn’s Holland Stadium and putting up yet another huge offensive performance on its way to a 57-12 victory over the Maroons.
A night later, at Central Square, CBA clinched the regular-season title, and the top playoff seed, from the Class AA-1 division with one of its best all-around efforts of the season, three rushers topping 100 yards as it rolled past the Red Hawks by a score of 48-12.
A big change for F-M, as it went to Auburn, was seeing Jimmy Krizman at quarterback in place of Wolfgang Shafer, who had started each of the team’s previous five games. But that didn’t slow down the Hornets’ production one bit.
And even an early Maroons touchdown didn’t faze F-M, who seized a 14-6 lead by the end of the first quarter. Krizman hit Sawyer Dew for a 10-yard touchdown pass, and Sean Bright capped off another drive with a five-yard scoring run.
F-M expanded upon that margin in the second period, as Bright earned his second TD on a 15-yard run and Krizman again connected with Dew, this time on a 39-yard scoring pass. The Hornets carried a 29-13 lead to halftime.
Any possible suspense ended when F-M piled up 28 points in the third quarter. Bright added his third and fourth TD’s of the night, on runs of six and seven yards, while Ryan Greer capped the effort with a 25-yard scoring run and an 84-yard dash to the end zone late in the period.
Greer led F-M with 112 yards on just four carries, while Bright added 80 yards on 14 carries. Krizman had a fine debut under center, completing eight of 13 passes for 165 yards, all of them to Dew (five catches, 90 yards) or Austin Perez (three cataches, 75 yards).
When CBA got its turn on Friday, it did not have the easiest assignment. Central Square, a Class AA cellar-dweller for years, was sporting a 3-2 record, having just beaten Nottingham 40-21 to take a giant step toward qualifying for the Class AA playoffs.
So the Brothers didn’t take the Red Hawks for granted, bolting out to a 12-0 lead by the end of the first quarter. And all of it was due to Mike Vavonese, who found the end zone on long TD runs of 52 and 33 yards.
After Central Square cut the deficit to 12-6, the Brothers resumed its relentless ground attack. Deshawn Salter scored from four yards out and added a two-point conversion, and Dametrious Brown scored from three yards out, making it 27-6 going into the half.
Vavonese returned to score on a two-yard run in the third period, and he got a fourth TD when Cam MacPherson found him for a 34-yard scoring pass. CBA’s defense got the final points when Joey Pascarella returned an interception 62 yards for another touchdown.
But it was the ground game that proved the main story. Vavonese gained 160 yards on 10 carries, while Pascarella had 11 carries for 117 yards. Salter needed just eight carries to travel 114 yards.
Both CBA and F-M close the regular season at home next Friday night, the Brothers to face Rome Free Academy, the Hornets to play Corcoran, who has won four in a row following an 0-2 start. The winner of that game will get to stay at home for the first round of the AA playoffs.
