What had started, for the West Genesee football team, as a fun and comfortable ride through Saturday night’s Section III Class AA semifinal against Utica Proctor at Liverpool High School Stadium turned far less comfortable as the game wore on.
And by the final act, the Wildcats were hanging on against a furious Raiders charge, only prevailing 33-28 when Matt Naton intercepted fellow quarterback Jordan Treen’s fourth-down pass with 1:06 to play.
“We made a lot of plays early on,” said WG head coach Joe Corley. “In the second half, we were sloppy and made mistakes, but I’m proud of my guys for hanging in there.”
In moving to 9-0 on the season, the Wildcats bridged the contest, a rematch of a 53-27 game won over Proctor in Camillus on Oct. 7, with interceptions from its defensive unit.
Long before Naton’s clinching pick, it was junior Matt Wierbinski putting his team in front midway through the first quarter. Right after Treen threw a 50-yard pass to Maurice Mills, he tried a swing pass, which got tipped – and Wierbinski sprinted in, put the ball in his hands and returned it 65 yards for a touchdown.
Flush with that momentum, the Wildcats put together a 91-yard drive late in the period, including Naton hitting Sean Howard on a 35-yard pass and Naesean Howard going 25 yards on an option run before he scored from five yards out.
Naesean Howard went to the sidelines after that march with a concussion and did not return. But WG kept going as, from the Raiders’ 34 early in the second quarter, Nate Flask took a lateral from Naton, drew in Proctor’s defense and then threw over them to a wide-open Teddy Glesener for an easy six points to make it 20-0.
Treen finally put the Raiders on the board, finding Chris Simmons on a 76-yard catch-and-run TD that cut the margin to 20-7. Minutes later, though, Naton’s 37-yard pass to Sean Howard set up Kesean Sparks scoring on one-yard run, which made it 26-7, where it stood at halftime.
The mistakes Corley talked about included two face-mask penalties, 15 yards each, on a Proctor drive early in the third quarter that led to Maurice Peace scoring on a four-yard run. Again, WG had a quick answer, as Naton’s 34-yard pass to Glesener near the goal line set up a six-yard TD strike to Howard.
At this moment, with a 33-14 lead, perhaps the Wildcats started thinking about a trip to the Carrier Dome. If so, Proctor almost ruined those thoughts.
Another WG penalty, for offensive pass interference, helped the Raiders get the ball back early in the fourth quarter, and two key passes from Treen to Mills set up Treen’s own five-yard TD run with 7:46 to play, which made it 33-21.
Concern turned into downright fear when, less than 90 seconds later, Simmons sprinted in, untouched, and blocked a Wildcat punt, scooping up the ball at the 20 and returning it for a touchdown, the extra point shrinking WG’s margin to five.
Two more times, the Wildcats would get the ball with a chance to eat up yards and time, and could do neither, leading to two more punts that, at least this time, were not blocked. So WG’s defense had to make two more stops.
Sparks got one of them, intercepting Treen’s deep pass and returning it 45 yards to midfield with 4:38 left. Even though the Wildcats could not run out the clock, and Proctor again moved into WG territory in the waning minutes, the defense halted the Raiders’ winning attempt as Naton stepped in front of Treen’s last throw.
Now, WG, making its first sectional finals appearance since 2008 (when it lost to Henninger 44-27), will go for the AA crown against Christian Brothers Academy, the game set for Saturday at 2 p.m.
CBA is 8-1, its lone loss coming in the Dome to Massachusetts power Mansfield on Sept. 9. The Brothers handled Corcoran (34-6) and Fayetteville-Manlius (34-14) in the playoffs so far, and features a diverse, balanced offense with many options at the skill positions, plus a fast and opportunistic defense that forced five turnovers against F-M.
Corley said the key, in this upcoming week, is to keep his players on an even emotional keel and not get too fired up for entering Central New York’s biggest sports stage, one on which CBA is quite familiar, having lost each of the last two sectional title games to Baldwinsville.
“We have a big challenge ahead of us, and were looking forward to it,” he said.
