Except for one opponent, the Bishop Ludden football team proved better than anyone it faced during the 2012 season.
Skaneateles proved the exception, both at the beginning and at the end, the latter part of it involving a 38-19 loss to the Lakers in Saturday night’s Section III Class C-1 championship game at Marcellus High School.
Nearly two months earlier, Ludden faced Skaneateles in the Aug. 31 opener at Hyatt Stadium, leading most of the way before the Lakers rallied and handed the Gaelic Knights a 31-24 defeat.
No one else had come as close to Skaneateles, and Ludden had gone 7-0 since, so the game started with a confident belief on the Gaelic Knights’ part that it could succeed if it made big plays and slowed the Lakers’ high-octane offense down.
Late in the first quarter, when it was still 0-0, things broke open. Skaneateles quarterback Conor Herr threw a 25-yard pass to Steven Bright on fourth down to set up his own one-yard scoring plunge.
Less than a minute later, Ludden pulled even, 7-7, with one of those trademark big plays as its quarterback, Zach Harding, threw a 51-yard scoring pass to Antoine Montgomery.
But it took less than two minutes for Skaneateles to regain the lead for keeps, using a series of long runs by Max Weiss to set up Herr’s second TD pass, a 31-yard strike to Conor Hill in the corner of the end zone.
Then the Lakers made it 21-7 early in the second period. Continuing to find different receivers, Herr went 48 yards to Max Dwyer, and called his own number on a three-yard scoring run one play later.
Harding’s second TD pass to Montgomery, covering 25 yards, cut Skaneateles’ lead to 21-13 late in the half, and it looked to be gaining momentum as two 15-yard penalties against the Lakers on the scoring play led to a rare kickoff deep inside Skaneateles territory.
But Herr, doing everything for the Lakers, returned it near midfield, setting up one more scoring march, capped by Herr going to Bright on a seven-yard scoring strike with 19.5 seconds left, which made it 28-13 going to the break.
A key to the game was what the Lakers did after receiving the second-half kickoff, putting together an 80-yard march that deftly mixed runs from Weiss and timely throws from Herr.
Jake Cooney, who had just one catch in the first half, made a spectacular one-handed catch on a five-yard TD pass, similar to the catches he made late in the first game with Ludden as the Lakers rallied to win.
Harding again responded less than a minute later with a long TD pass, 47 yards to Malik Stenson, but again Ludden missed the two-point attempt, leaving it at 35-19.
Both sides would commit turnovers late in the period. Ludden picked up a fumble at the Lakers’ 30, only to give up the ball two plays later as the ubiquitous Herr fell on it.
Skaneateles held the ball for the first half of the fourth quarter, and while it didn’t lead to points, it quickly got the ball back and clinched the game when Colin Alexander, already five-for-five on extra points, connected on a 25-yard field goal.
So Ludden finished with a 7-2 mark, the win streak bookended by the defeats to Skaneateles. Many standouts, including Harding, Montgomery, Stenson, Wilkinson, John Mahar, Colin Cacchione and Max Trunfio, depart, leaving a big challenge for the Gaelic Knights, given the school’s small size and lack of a JV team.
