All of that abuse the Jamesville-DeWitt football team took in September on its way to an 0-4 start had a purpose, for now the Red Rams find itself in a three-way battle with East Syracuse-Minoa and Fulton for the Class A American division regular-season championship.
Offering a fitting climax to a Friday where J-D inducted the newest members of its Athletic Hall of Fame, the Red Rams claimed a 42-35 thriller over visiting Oswego, while the Spartans, clinching a share of the league title, went to first-place Fulton and defeated the Red Raiders 42-26.
Just six days earlier, Oswego had knocked off ESM 28-20, throwing the league race wide-open, even for J-D, who had broken its four-game skid on Oct. 2 with a 28-14 win over Cortland to move to 1-1 in league play.
Given this new life, the Rams didn’t waste it, bolting out to a 14-0 lead on Oswego by the second quarter. Mike Schwedes put J-D on the board with a 35-yard touchdown run, and Ernest Shaw scored on a one-yard plunge.
Even when the Bucs cut the deficit to 14-7, the Rams had a quick answer, Joe Murphy getting loose on a 22-yard scoring run that made it 20-7 going to halftime.
From there, J-D and Oswego would exchange blows for the rest of the night. Ed Sheridan’s second TD, on a three-yard run in the third quarter, was matched when Jhakeer Jamison scored from seven yards out
The final period proved wilder. Twice, the Bucs would find the end zone, on short TD runs from Sheridan and Jake Lofthouse, that tied the game 28-28, but the Rams weren’t phased one bit.
Murphy capped another scoring drive with a one-yard plunge to give the Rams the lead again, and Jamison added a second TD on an eight-yard run that, combined with Murphy’s two-point conversion, made it 42-28.
Though Lofthouse scored from five yards out to cut the gap to seven, J-D would hang on, and a diverse ground attack had much to do with it. Schwedes had a team-best 125 yards on just eight carries, while Shaw pounded out 105 yards on 24 carries. Jamison finished with 63 yards on the ground and Murphy added 48 yards.
While all this was going on, ESM, knowing it had to bounce back from its Oswego loss in just six days to keep its league title hopes alive, moved ahead early at Fulton, and then, just like J-D did against the Bucs, hung on in the game’s latter stages.
All through the first half, the Spartans’ defense stifled the Red Raiders’ ground attack. At the same time, ESM put together a pair of touchdown drives, Fred Johnson ending one of them with a nine-yard run, Brandon Breen producing another score with a 33-yard pass to Kollin Diedrickson.
But that 14-0 halftime lead didn’t prove too safe. Fulton got on the board with Cody Green’s 22-yard TD pass to Dallas Bradley, but ESM countered in a big way when Johnson, from midfield, broke loose on a 49-yard sprint to the end zone.
Green’s second TD pass, 51 yards to Chris Jones, began a wild fourth quarter. RiQuelle Othman’s eight-yard scoring run made it 28-14, but Fulton turned to Q.J. Jackson, who on back-to-back drives burned ESM for scoring runs of 66 and 15 yards.
Fortunately for the Spartans, the Red Raiders missed conversion attempts after both of Jackson’s touchdowns, so it still led 28-26 when Johnson, fielding a short kickoff at his own 35, offered the night’s biggest play, returning that kick 65 yards for six points to thwart Fulton’s momentum.
That made it 34-26, and when Green, pinned deep in his own end, threw an interception that Breen returned 15 yards for a touchdown, ESM sealed it.
The Spartans are done with league play at 3-1 (3-3 overall). J-D and Fulton are both 2-1 in the league, and meet each other next Friday at 7 p.m. on the Red Raiders’ home turf to see who ties the Spartans for first place.
Regardless of who wins, they’ll have to take the second-place spot in the eventual Section III Class A playoff seedings, since ESM beat both J-D and Fulton head-to-head.
