All the East Syracuse Minoa football team has wanted is to get back to the Carrier Dome and take that extra step to earn a Section III Class A title that proved elusive one year ago – but the Spartans nearly didn’t make it out of the opening round in 2015.

Watertown visited Spartan Stadium Friday night and jumped out to a quick early lead before ESM, no. 15 in the latest state Class A rankings, stopped making mistakes, seized control and eventually knocked out the Cyclones 34-20 for its seventh win in a row.

Not far away, Jamesville-DeWitt attempted to end the title reign of defending state champion Indian River, only to get bottled up by a tough Warriors defense in a 20-7 defeat.

Rarely does any team, at any level of football, commit seven turnovers and prevail. Yet ESM proved an exception, and proved quite generous too, giving it away to Watertown (who was 2-5 entering the game) three times in the game’s first five minutes.

One of those takeaways led to an immediate six points when Daesean Williams returned Jake Rodman’s interception 46 yards for the score. Another set up a second Williams touchdown on a 26-yard run.

Even with missed conversions, the Cyclones led 12-0, but once that happened, things started to turn ESM’s way thanks to a defense that, despite all the extra possessions, held Watertown to 180 total yards and blanked them in the second and third periods.

That gave the Spartans ample time to shake off those mistakes and find the end zone – which Rodman did in the second quarter on an 11-yard pass to Ty Barkins.

Then Jeremy Perry, who had carried ESM’s offense much of the season, started to take over again, getting TD runs of five and three yards that, combined with a pair of two-point conversions, put the Spartans in front, 22-12, going to halftime.

Watertown was bent on keeping Perry from big numbers, and succeeded, to a degree, “holding” him to a season-low 120 yards on 21 carries. But Buck helped out with 108 yards on the ground and, in the third quarter, caught a 15-yard scoring pass from Rodman, who threw for 201 yards.

Still, the pile of turnovers allowed the Cyclones to hang around as Nick Lavin found Cameron Jones on a 12-yard TD pass with 8:31 left that, with the two-point conversion, cut ESM’s lead to 28-20.

Naturally, Perry made sure ESM locked up the win, using his longest run of the night, 41 yards, to set up his own five-yard scoring run less than a minute later.

In Friday’s sectional Class A semifinal at Chittenango High School, ESM takes on Fulton, who won 20-14 at Carthage, but lost to the Spartans 35-18 earlier this month in a game where Perry gained a school-record 411 yards. Game time is 5 p.m.

J-D wanted to get there, but in the way was Indian River. It was a rematch of a game played exactly seven days earlier on that same new Red Rams Field Turf, when the Warriors prevailed 18-7.

Eli Williams got the Rams on the board in the first quarter, capping off a scoring drive with a three-yard run. From that point on, though, IR’s defense, which had shown vast improvement following a September slump, kept J-D from scoring again.

A pivotal second quarter saw the Warriors take charge. Dustin Sharrit found the end zone from eight yards out to make it 7-6, and minutes later IR blocked a Rams punt that Adorian Nicholson scooped up and took 41 yards to the end zone for the go-ahead TD. Nicholson also caught a two-point pass, and the Warriors took the lead.

The Rams’ defense kept the game within reach, stopping IR near its own goal line late in the half after Mike Schwedes’ fumble and then blanking the Warriors in the third quarter.

Yet the score remained 14-7, and IR stayed patient until the final period, when it moved to the Rams’ three-yard line and Sharrit scored from there.

Juan Garcia Robles’ late interception snuffed out J-D’s last hope, and it fell to 5-3, with Indian River advancing to Friday’s sectional semifinal (also at Chittenango) against Whitesboro, who routed Fowler 54-6 in the other Class A opening-round game.