Atonement was at hand for the Solvay football team.
Seven days after squandering a 22-point second-half lead to Marcellus, the Bearcats had returned to the friendly turf of Al Merola Field Friday night and fought its way to a slim one-point lead against its other neighbor and rival, Westhill. What’s more, it had the Warriors pinned deep in its own territory, and one more stop might provided a long-awaited breakthrough win.
But Westhll cared little for the Bearcats’ sentiment, making a breathtaking big play and, in one swoop, turning a potential disappointment into a 19-14 victory and a 2-0 start for first-year head coach Jamie Casullo.
Even with a short week of work, Westhill was determined to have a successful follow-up to its season opener, a 28-20 win over Fonda-Fultonville in the Kickoff Classic at the Carrier Dome where new quarterback Richie Easterly had thrown for three touchdown passes.
So it was only fitting that, with the Warriors trailing 14-12, the ball at its own 17-yard line and the Solvay crowd at “The Pit” in full throat, Easterly would come up big again.
Going back to pass near his own goal line, Easterly threw long – and found Jesse Chester, who raced past all the Bearcats’ defenders and, 83 yards later, was in the end zone.
And though the conversion attempt was no good, Westhill’s defense made that five-point lead hold up with some key defensive stops, leaving Solvay to ponder yet another gut-wrenching defeat.
Many wondered just how the Bearcats would react to the second-half disaster against Marcellus. It mostly coped by emphasizing play on the defensive side of the ball, which paid off in a solid first half where it only allowed one TD, on Ja’Shai Jamison’s nine-yard run.
Yet Westhill’s defense scored, too, on a safety. So even though the Bearcats got on the board with quarterback Jeff Honsinger’s two-yard run, it went to halftime trailing by a 9-6 margin.
The Warriors doubled that advantage in the third quarter as Mike Burton, the senior captain, belted a 35-yard field goal. But Solvay struck back early in the final period with a clutch scoring drive that ended with Nick Perry scoring from two yards out.
Easterly had the final say, though, accounting for most of his 148 passing yards (he completed eight of 15 attempts) through that single long pass to Chester. Jamison had a game-high 78 rushing yards on 19 carries.
Offensively, Brandon Franklin paced Solvay with 11 carries for 67 yards, Honsinger adding 52 yards on the ground. Defensively, John Dippold was sensational for the Bearcats, accounting for 10 tackles, two of them sacks, and forcing a fumble. Franklin and Perry each added five tackles, with Garrett Lee contributing an interception.
Now Solvay will try to erase its frustrations – but it won’t be easy, having to visit Homer next Friday to face a Trojans team that, in wins over Phoenix and Cortland, have outscored those two foes by a combined 127-12.
Meanwhile, Westhill gets its home opener Thursday night against Skaneateles, whose 1-1 start in its return to Class B has included a win over Chittenango and a 35-20 defeat to Marcellus where it surrendered all 35 of those points in the second half – a feeling to which Solvay can easily relate.
