All is now in place for the Chittenango football team’s clash this Friday night with Homer, likely to decide the regular-season championship of the Class B West division.
Both the Bears and Trojans are 3-0, 2-0 in league play, after last Friday’s action, which saw Chittenango, no. 3 in the first state Class B rankings of the season, go to Marcellus and pull away from the Mustangs 29-6.
As that went on, Homer, who had the no. 11 spot in the state poll going into the week, stayed unbeaten by piling up the points in a 57-22 romp over Homer, perhaps aware that such production might prove much more difficult against Aaron Jones and the rest of the Bears’ stingy defense.
And it was that defense, led again by Jones (who finished with 10 tackles), that pushed Chittenango in front during a rain-soaked first quarter at Marcellus, which started after a half-hour weather delay.
With the game still 0-0 late in the period, the Mustangs were pinned deep in its own territory. Here, Marcellus quarterback Duncan Merritt attempted a pass. Someone deflected it, and linebacker Steve Billington grabbed it at the Mustangs’ six-yard line, walking into the end zone and adding the extra point, too, to put his side up 7-0.
Billington accounted for all of the Bears’ points in the first half, tacking on a 25-yard field goal in the second quarter after a drive stalled near the Marcellus goal line.
So it was 10-0 at the break, but Marcellus wasn’t done. It took the second-half kickoff 70 yards to the end zone, Merritt going the final eight yards for the TD.
After the conversion was missed, the Mustangs gambled, trying an onside kick and recovering it – only to get penalized for touching the ball before it reached the required 10 yards.
Instead of having the ball at midfield with a chance to go out in front, Marcellus had to watch Chittenango return to its vaunted ground game, moving to the goal line before Kyle Zimmer went the final yard for the TD.
That made it 16-6, and quarterback Devin Phelps handled the rest of the scoring. On his way to 115 yards on 10 carries, Phelps took off on a 46-yard TD run late in the third period, and added a 15-yard scoring run in the final quarter to clinch it.
And this sets up the clash with Homer. The Trojans, like Chittenango, prefer to keep it on the ground, as evidence in the Solvay game when, led by Mark Dove (nine carries, 138 yards), it scored five times on runs of 20 or more yards. It figures to be a physical battle with a large, spirited crowd descending upon “Bear Country” to see what happens.
