For a fleeting moment, the Chittenango football team thought it had snatched the winning points out of the air.
And then the Bears saw the yellow flag on the turf, heard the call for offensive pass interference, and could not believe that a potential game-saving play had, instead, turned into a penalty that ultimately doomed them in Friday night’s 3-0 defeat to the Westhill Warriors.
The result left Chittenango and Westhill both 4-2 in the Class B West division, part of a three-way tie for second with Skaneateles behind 6-0 Homer.
So the battle for who will host a Section III playoff home game in the Oct. 23-24 opening round will hinge on this weekend’s regular-season finales, with the Bears taking on Solvay, the Warriors visiting Homer and the Lakers facing Cortland.
Yet the Bears know that, were it not for its own uneven play leading up to that fateful call, it may have locked up that home game against Westhill.
Instead, the game, played in windy, wet conditions, dissolved into a carnival of multiple errors piled up by both teams, with no one taking a firm grip on the proceedings until Westhill ran out the last 2:54 of the clock.
Chittenango had the best opportunity during a scoreless first half. Starting on its own three-yard line, the Bears moved all the way to the Warriors’ two, helped by Justin Gondeck’s 23-yard run and his subsequent 30-yard pass to Tony Cutrie.
Westhill made a big stand, though, halting Chittenango to keep the game 0-0, and setting the stage for a second half where it would march five times into Bears territory, constantly searching for those elusive first points.
Showing its own resolve, Chittenango’s defense twice forced turnovers in the third quarter – one a Westhill fumble inside the Bears’ 20, the other a Duncan Smith interception near midfield. Again, though, the hosts could not capitalize, with Smith dropping a long Gondeck pass on the final play of the period while streaking, unmarked, toward the end zone.
For its part, Westhill kept hurting itself with those turnovers, plus a slew of ill-timed penalties that stopped multiple scoring chances. So it was little surprise that, with the Warriors threatening at the Bears’ 21 midway through the fourth quarter, it chose to try a field goal.
Enter Silvino Argentini, the Warriors’ kicker. With a wind partially at his back and crossing from the right, Argentini, from the right hashmark, sent a 39-yard field goal low and through the uprights, putting Westhill in front with 5:58 to play.
Smith promptly returned the ensuing kickoff near midfield, and a personal-foul penalty on the Warriors allowed Chittenango to start at Westhill’s 40. Patiently, it moved the ball, aided by Gondeck’s 13-yard pass to Hunter Hendrix, but stalled at the Warriors’ 15. Worse yet, it had run out of time-outs.
On fourth-and-four, the Bears went for it. Gondeck floated a pass to the left side of the end zone, where Wyatt Myers, adjusting his route, ran to the ball and snatched it from a Westhill defender as both tumbled to the ground.
Originally, it was signaled a touchdown – but officials ruled that Myers had interfered with a Westhill defender. Instead of the go-ahead points, the stunned Bears had to try again on fourth down, and it fell short.
Having seen Senior Night end on a down note, Chittenango knows that it could still get a playoff home game as long as it beats Solvay and Westhill loses at Homer, for in that case, even a Skaneateles win would leave the Bears with the head-to-head tie-breaker needed to place second in B West.