When the Christian Brothers Academy football team looks back Friday night’s season opener against Baldwinsville at Alibrandi Stadium, it will find plenty to critique, from missed tackles to a couple of muffed kicks.
But the Brothers will also see the very character trait that makes it the consensus favorite in the Section III Class AA ranks this fall – namely, the ability to spring big plays at any time, and have multiple players capable of such feats.
Four different times against the Bees, CBA rattled off plays of 50 or more yards, three of them touchdowns, and that lay the foundation for a 37-6 victory over B’ville.
As it always does, B’ville’s intention was to establish its run game and prevent the opposition from burning them deep. But that was exactly what the Brothers did after stopping the Bees’ opening drive deep in its own territory.
From the B’ville 42, Sirvocea Dennis, making his first start as the Brothers’ quarterback, threw a swing pass to Noah Jordan-Williams, and the Boston College-bound senior took off, never to get caught in a 58-yard dash to the end zone. Mike Mathison’s extra point made it 7-0.
Dennis did something even more important when the Bees again were threatening to score late in the first quarter. Anticipating a Ben Dwyer pass on third down, Dennis stepped in front of it at the Brothers’ 25 and took off down the same sideline where Jordan-Williams had just sprinted, a 75-yard touchdown.
Even though the PAT was missed, the 13-0 margin brought discouragement to the visitors, which only increased when Dwyer’s knee touched the turf on a punt snap at his own three-yard line. Stevie Scott scored on the next play.
Mathison’s 25-yard field goal was set up by a second B’ville turnover, a fumble that Reed DelFavero recovered. CBA’s defense, tested throughout the game, made another key stop right before halftime, thwarting a long B’ville drive with help from a holding penalty that negated a possible TD pass from Dwyer to Gabe Horan.
Kept relatively quiet in the first half, Scott changed that in a hurry five minutes into the third quarter. Taking a draw handoff at his own 11, Scott cut left and found open turf, outrunning the entire B’ville defense to the goal line to increase the lead to 30-0.
Only in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter did the Bees break up the shutout thanks to Thor Sutphen’s 15-yard TD run. But the Brothers answered a minute later as DeAndre Dowdell had his own big moment, a 52-yard run that set up Nate Torrance’s 27-yard scoring dash a play later.
Next Saturday night, CBA makes the long trek to Buffalo to face St. Francis. The Brothers’ Class AA-1 division slate starts Sept. 16 at home against Henninger.
