Whether the East Syracuse-Minoa football team prevails in the Carrier Dome against Indian River with the Section III Class A championship on the line, it will never, ever forget the way it got to that game.
In a comeback for the ages, the Spartans, trailing 35-10 at halftime to Whitesboro in Friday night’s Class A semifinal at Chittenango High School, made it all the way back and, on Jake Rodman’s last-second touchdown pass to Fred Johnson, beat the Warriors 38-35.
All seemed lost going into the third quarter, but that was when ESM made up most of that 25-point deficit, using a pair of scoring drives to make it 35-23, but it wasn’t until the fourth quarter that the amazing stuff really started to happen.
First, Whitesboro’s Gary Casab missed a 32-yard field goal in the opening seconds of the period, the ball long enough, but clanging off the upright.
Barely a minute later, with the ball on his own 15, Rodman threw deep and found Brandon Santillo, who took it the rest of the way, 85 yards for six points. Kollin Diedrickson added the extra point, and suddenly it was 35-30, with a lot of time (10:32, to be specific) left.
Carrying all of the momentum, the Spartans forced another Whitesboro punt and drove down to the Warriors’ 20, only to get stopped on fourth down with 4:44 to play.
Again, ESM’s defense, pushed around for the entire first half but reborn once the Spartans started scoring points, forced a three-and-out and a quick Whitesboro punt.
Now Rodman and the Spartans took over on its own 46, good field position, with 3:13 left. Everything had led up to this drive, and ESM didn’t waste it, steadily moving the balll toward the Warriors’ goal line and conserving its time-outs until it needed them late.
With 7.7 seconds to play, and the ballon Whitesboro’s five, ESM used its final time-out. This play call had to be right, and it was.
Rodman went back to pass. Ably protected, he threw it to the end zone, where Johnson snared it for the winning points with just three seconds to play. RiQuelle Othman added a two-point conversion.
Moments later, ESM’s unlikely ticket to the Dome was punched – and head coach Kevin DeParde had his 100th career victory, and few of them have ever proved more memorable.
A hint at the magic ahead was offered in the first quarter, when Rodman found DeShaun Gorman for a 55-yard scoring pass that briefly put the Spartans in front 7-6.
On the ensuing kickoff, though, Josh Zaleski tore through ESM’s special teams and went 87 yards to the end zone, putting Whitesboro in front and igniting a first-half Warriors frenzy.
It was 19-10 by the end of the first quarter, with Diedrickson’s 25-yard field goal answered by Mike Cirasoulo’s 50-yard scoring run.
The Warriors, unfazed by the absence of top back Travis Eberley in the lineup (he was injured in Whitesboro’s first-round win over Jamesville-DeWitt), kept turning to Cirasoulo, and he scored again on a two-yard run in the second quarter on his way to 206 yards on 20 carries.
Even more damaging, at the time, was John Delahunt intercepting a tipped Rodman pass and bringing it back 44 yards for a TD. Kasab’s successful field goal in the last minute of the half created that 35-10 deficit that, by all indications, would bring an end to ESM’s title hopes.
Except that ESM forgot to hear the part about its season being over. It was critical to score on the first drive of the third quarter, and the Spartans did so on Othman’s 11-yard run.
Less than five minutes later, Othman found the end zone again, from five yards out, and suddenly it was 35-23, an improbable matter turning into something quite possible – and by night’s end, that possibility had turned into glorious reality.
From this enormous high, ESM will try and capture it again next Friday night at 8 p.m. at the Dome against Indian River, who is 9-0, no. 6 in the latest state Class A rankings and comes off its own tough semifinal, a 14-7 win over Carthage, the team it lost to in the 2013 title game.
ESM’s last sectional title came in 2011, when it blanked Whitesboro 27-0 in the Dome. Great as that was, what happened in this game against Whitesboro might shine as brightly, especially if the Spartans can claim one more victory.
