Jordan-Elbridge’s quest to make the Section III Class C football semifinals for the second year in a row took them to the north country, and nearly proved successful.
Trailing most of the way in Friday night’s opening-round game against General Brown, the Eagles made a late charge, but could not make it all the way back in a 28-25 defeat to the Lions.
Once a state top 10 team, General Brown started 6-0, only to fall to Thousand Islands in its Oct. 16 regular-season finale and miss a chance at the outright Class C North regular-season title.
As a result, the Lions, under first-year coach Doug Black (who succeeded Lions great Steve Fisher), fell to the no. 4 playoff seed, but still earned the home game against J-E, whose own league title dreams were extinguished a week earlier in a loss to Canastota.
The Eagles kept the game scoreless in the first quarter, mainly due to Zach Pangaro’s interception following a 41-yard run from Dylan Bice, but GB didn’t stay off the board for long.
Richard Dawkins’ 18-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter broke the deadlock in the Lions’ favor, and a J-E turnover led to more points when Zack Barker found a seam up the middle and sprinted 37 yards to the end zone.
Staring at a 14-point deficit, J-E had to do something before halftime, and did so with a long, bruising drive that Sam Robles capped off with a seven-yard scoring run.
Better yet, it stopped GB short of a possible answering score in the waning seconds of the half as Cordell Sherwood sacked Evan Will and forced a fumble, so it was 14-6 going to the break.
Not bothered by any of this, the Lions took the second-half kickoff and scored just four plays later on Will’s 29-yard run.
J-E countered with Dominic Walborn throwing a fourth-down pass to George Richardson that set up LaMatt Chisholm’s one-yard TD run, though again the Eagles missed the conversion, leaving it at 21-12 entering the final period.
Just 40 seconds into the fourth quarter, Will made it 28-12 with a seven-yard scoring pass to Tom Dupree, but the Eagles would not quit.
Richardson capped off another long drive with a five-yard TD run to make it 28-18, with yet another two-point attempt missed. GB tried to eat off the remaining clock, but fumbled on J-E’s 46 with 2:10 to play.
Robles then sent a charge through the Eagles’ fans when he broke loose on a 48-yard dash to the end zone just two plays later. A successful extra point had the Lions’ margin down to three.
Attempting an onside kick, the Eagles saw GB fall on it, and then get the first down it needed to run out the clock and advance to next weekend’s sectional semifinal against defending champion Utica-Notre Dame, while J-E fell to 5-3.
In crossover games, West Genesee finally broke into the win column in 2015, defeating Henninger 44-28, while Bishop Ludden fell to Lowville 47-20, with Shi’kem Lee throwing TD passes of 53 and 54 yards to Joe Connor in the Gaelic Knights’ defeat.
Marcellus won its crossover game, defeating Oswego 42-36 by getting 27 unanswered points to erase the Buccaneers’ early 14-0 deficit. This included Nate Garlow catching a 99-yard TD pass from Mike Keegan and also scoring on long runs of 83 and 87 yards, plus a 43-yard scoring pass from Tom Fiacchi as the Mustangs improved to 4-4.
Solvay took a 38-36 defeat to Lowville despite two touchdowns in the final three minutes in cutting down a 38-20 deficit. Alex Britton, in defeat, ran for a career-high 227 yards and scored three times.
