In order to claim the Section III Class C title that it never got a chance to grab a year ago, the Skaneateles football team will have to win four games in an expanded sectional tournament.
In the opening round on Friday night, the Lakers, the no. 2 seed in the C-1 bracket, welcomed no. 7 seed Sherburne-Earlville to Hyatt Stadium and put together another fine all-around effort, beating the Marauders 49-22.
This sets up an exciting C-1 semifinal Saturday at Chittenango High School between two undefeated sides, Skaneateles and General Brown. Both are 7-0, and the Lions shut out five consecutive opponents this fall before edging past Utica-Notre Dame 33-30 in its playoff opener. Game time is 3 p.m.
As for the Lakers, it steadily put away Sherburne-Earlville by building a 35-0 lead through three periods and again got a superb effort from senior quarterback Conor Herr.
By the time he was done, Herr had competed 24 of 33 passes for 298 yards and five touchdowns. It was a balanced pass attack, too, as Jake Cooney caught eight passes for 106 yards, Steven Bright had seven catches for 91 yards and Conor Hill had 86 receiving yards on just three catches.
Herr found another receiver, Max Dwyer, on a 15-yard scoring completion early in the first quarter to put Skaneateles on the board. Then running back Max Weiss, who balanced out the attack with 102 yards on 21 carries, scored from three yards out to make it 14-0.
The Lakers doubled that margin in the second quarter. Herr found Weiss on a 13-yard TD completion and connected with Bright on an 18-yard scoring pass, which made it 28-0 going into halftime.
During the third quarter, Herr got his fourth TD pass, 14 yards to Cooney, and Conor Alexander made his fifth consecutive extra point. Before exiting, Herr and Cooney connected again on a 28-yard scoring pass, with Tyler Parr going deep to find Hill on a 70-yard scoring play in the late stages.
Whoever wins the Skaneateles-General Brown game will play Canastota or Bishop Ludden in the Class C-1 championship game on Oct. 26 or 27.
