September ends with the Baldwinsville football team sporting a perfect 4-0 mark, a strong ground attack and a stronger defense – which put together, means it can make a legitimate championship push.
The state Class AA no. 20-ranked Bees made it four in a row Friday night as part of Homecoming festivities at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, steadily pulling away from Fayetteville-Manlius in a 39-6 decision that featured another star turn from senior Cameron Skipworth.
Carrying the ball 17 times, Skipworth amassed 254 yards. On offense and on special teams, Skipworth combined for four touchdowns, and he was also part of a Bees first-team defense that, for the fourth consecutive week, didn’t allow a point, the Hornets’ lone touchdown coming on Jeff Martin’s second-quarter kickoff return.
This was, to be fair, an F-M team far removed from its undefeated 2013 regular season in Damien Rhodes’ first season as head coach. Heavy roster turnover cost the Hornets all of its top skills players from a season ago, and then an injury in the Sept. 6 season opener against Cicero-North Syracuse took out senior quarterback Jake Wittig.
Without them, F-M put up a decent effort and kept the game close for much of the first half, only to get worn down by B’ville’s fine all-around play.
Skipworth got his team on the board, scoring the lone points of the first quarter on a 49-yard touchdown run that, with Tom Scarfino’s conversion, had B’ville in front 7-0.
A wild sequence in the second period would prove decisive. F-M was forced to punt deep in its own end and Skipworth, taking the ball on the Hornets’ 38, would return it for his second TD.
Seconds later, Martin answered with his own kick return to the end zone, making it 13-6, but B’ville promptly went on another scoring march that Skipworth finished with a 14-yard jaunt to the end zone, and it was 19-6 going into halftime.
Any doubts were erased by the Bees scoring twice in the third quarter, including Skipworth’s fourth TD on a 20-yard run and Sam Mahar catching a 33-yard scoring pass from Madison Wolfanger, but it was Josh Smith offering the exclamation point by dashing 69 yards to the end zone in the final period.
That accounted for most of Smith’s 85 yards on the ground. Ryan Ingerson added 64 yards on seven carries, while Mahar got 56 yards on just five carries.
Meanwhile, B’ville’s defense constantly put pressure on the Hornets, sacking quarterback Jared Shaw four times in the first half, two of them by Nate Slade, and also consistently containing the ground game, too.
Senior captain Cole Burchill led the way with 15 tackles, nine of them solo. Seven of Calvin Tanguay’s nine tackles were solo efforts, with Slade earning seven tackles and Josh Greer contributing five tackles.
Now all that stands between the Bees and its big Oct. 10 showdown with state no. 12-ranked Henninger at Sunnycrest Field is next Saturday’s visit to Utica Procto – who at 1-3 just faced Henninger and lost, 46-14, to the Black Knights. Kickoff is at 2:30.
