Twelve months later, the East Syracuse Minoa football team has made it back to the Carrier Dome.
Denied the Section III Class A title by eventual state champion Indian River a year ago, the Spartans would have accepted nothing less than a return to that title game, and earned it Friday night by putting away Fulton 34-15 in the sectional semifinal at Chittenango High School.
This time around, ESM doesn’t have to worry about Indian River. Instead, Whitesboro provides the opposition in Friday night’s 8 p.m. title game at the Dome, having ended IR’s state title reign with an impressive 33-8 victory in the other Class A semifinal contest.
Getting there for the Spartans meant having to beat Fulton for the second time this season. Back on Oct. 2, the Spartans topped the Red Raiders 34-16, a game made memorable by Jeremy Perry’s school-record 411 rushing yards.
At first, it sure seemed like ESM was going to give Fulton another full dose of Perry power, as on its opening drive it ran 11 plays, all of them on the ground, all with Perry pushing Fulton defenders backward until he scored on a two-yard plunge to put the Spartans up 6-0.
As the game wore on, though, the Spartans gave Perry some much-needed assistance in the form of another strong back, Greg Buck. Carrying the ball 23 times, Buck produced a career-best 191 yards, nearly matching Perry’s total of 25 carries and 196 yards.
That balance, along with some help from the Red Raiders, helped ESM take charge late in the second period.
Fulton was up, 7-6, at that point, having quieted the Spartans following Perry’s early push and recorded a TD of its own thanks to Cody Green’s 25-yard pass to Darrin Cooper.
Leaning on Buck instead of Perry, the Spartans countered with a 66-yard, nine-play drive that Buck finished with a three-yard TD run. Less than a minute later, after a Fulton fumble, ESM went to the air, Jake Rodman finding Brandon Santillo for a 35-yard scoring pass.
Up 20-7 at the break, the Spartans returned to the ground to put the Red Raiders away in the third quarter. With the experienced ESM line dominating the line of scrimmage, Buck scored a second time on a 12-yard run and Perry, showing that he has deceptive speed to go with all of his power, scampered 58 yards for the longest TD of the night.
Memories of that crushing defeat to Indian River at the Dome a year ago have fueled ESM all season. Now it goes back to the Dome and meets Whitesboro, whom it beat, 27-6, when it last won the sectional title in 2011. Both teams carry 8-1 records into the title game.
