Many different things could yet happen to the Skaneateles football team – but at least it has a winning regular season locked up.
Helped by a 27-point first-quarter outburst, the Lakers defeated Syracuse’s Institute of Technology Central 33-6 Friday night at Hyatt Stadium to improve to 4-2 and, due to other events, still hold an outside chance of hosting a first-round Section III Class B playoff game.
Not only did the Lakers have home-field advantage and an 0-5 opponent in ITC (who moved up this season after playing in Class C a season ago), it also had the elements as an advantage.
A combination of wind and rain as the game got underway meant that whoever had the breeze at its back in the first quarter.
Fortunately for Skaneateles, it won the coin toss and, deferring its choice to the second half, forced the Eagles to face that wind and rain. Quickly, that led to a Laker possession deep in ITC territory that Aubrey Leverich converted into an eight-yard touchdown run.
Minutes later, with the ball situated near midfield, Skaneateles went to the air, seeing Devin Callahan sling a 48-yard scoring pass to Zach Blair to make it 13-0.
Again, ITC gave the ball back to the Lakers and, again, the hosts converted through the air, Callahan finding Marc Pietropaoli from 40 yards out, plus a two-point conversion.
And just as the first quarter was ending, the Eagles fumbled it, and Joey McIntyre returned that fumble 45 yards for a touchdown, extending the Lakers’ lead to 27-0.
Once the second quarter started, and it was working into the wind and rain, Skaneateles slowed down, quite happy that it had accumulated all of those early points.
In fact, other than Callahan’s one-yard TD sneak in the third quarter, the Lakers didn’t score again, but a strong defense kept ITC off the board until the final period.
By that point, Skaneateles could take a look at the Class B West standings and see that it was in a three-way tie for second place with Westhill and Chittenango behind Homer (6-0) after the Warriors fought past Chittenango 3-0, preventing the Bears from clinching a first-round home playoff game.
Yet Cortland, sitting at 3-3, could still spoil the Lakers’ playoff plans. Skaneateles meets the Purple Tigers in next Friday’s regular-season finale, and only a win guarantees advancement to the post-season, with a chance at an even better seed depending on the results of Westhill’s game at Homer and Chittenango’s game at Solvay.