Though it doesn’t always produce the smoothest of efforts, the Cazenovia football team can live with those minor setbacks as long as there’s a victory at the final whistle.
Such was the case Saturday afternoon at Buckley-Volo Field, where the Lakers, relying on four turnovers that led to well-timed scoring bursts, beat South Jefferson 34-14 to move to 2-0 on the season.
South Jefferson was playing its second straight road game, the Spartans having won 35-20 at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill a week earlier. But it looked, at the outset, that Cazenovia would give them the same rude treatment that it gave to Camden in its 40-6 opening-week win.
Receiving the opening kickoff, the Lakers moved 70 yards, mostly on the ground. Jake Wozniak’s 33-yard run got the ball deep into Spartan territory, and Keaton Ackermann closed it out with a 12-yard scoring pass to Sam Langan and his own successful extra point.
Cazenovia’s defense made its first big play when Anthony Rinaldo recovered a Spartan fumble at the Lakers’ 37. Then Ackermann took over, using option runs of 26 and 17 yards, plus a 12-yard pass to Jake Shaffner, to set up his own two-yard TD plunge.
Those points, coming with 2:37 left in the first quarter, were the last of the first half. Cazenovia’s offense bogged down in the wet, windy conditions, but South Jefferson could not take full advantage.
Twice in the second period, Ackermann picked off errant Adam Hutchison passes. And when Shaffner dropped a punt deep in his own end with less than two minutes left in the half, he made up for it by sacking Hutchison to thwart another opportunity, keeping it 14-0 going into halftime.
Nothing hurt the Spartans more, though, than its initial drive of the third quarter. Using up more than six minutes of clock and ably mixing up passes and runs, South Jefferson moved to Cazenovia’s 25, but again the Lakers’ front four, led by Shaffner, used a pair of sacks to force a turnover on downs.
Then it took just three plays for Cazenovia to make it 20-0. Wozniak set it up, taking off on a 33-yard dash, and moments later Phillips broke several tackles on a 21-yard jaunt to the end zone.
Any Spartan hopes were victory were dashed when it fumbled on the first play of its ensuing possession on its own 31, and T.J. Connellan ran 17 yards to set up Wozniak’s one-yard TD plunge.
Never giving up, South Jefferson did get a pair of passing touchdowns in the fourth quarter, Hutchison throwing it 15 yards to Eric Mullin for one score and 63 yards to Tristan Richards for another. In between, Wozniak ran back a kickoff 57 yards and Phillips rumbled 34 yards to set up his own TD with 7:32 left in the game.
Hutchison had quite a performance through the air, throwing for 264 yards. But the turnovers, and the Lakers’ defensive pressure (six sacks in all), helped to negate those gaudy numbers, as did a balanced ground attack where Phillips and Wozniak combined for 168 yards.
Now the Lakers will go on the road for the first time this fall, visiting Central Valley Academy Friday night at 7 p.m. The Thunder, in its second year of varsity play (it’s a combination of the former Mohawk and Ilion schools), are 0-2, having lost to Mexico (42-14) and Oneida (42-22) to open its campaign.
