Having nearly won against Westhill on Sept. 1 at the Carrier Dome despite committing eight turnovers, the Marcellus football knew that it had to clean up that statistic if it wanted any chance to move up the Class B West division ranks.
Sure enough, the Mustangs did take care of the ball in its next outing – and by doing so, earned its biggest win in years, going to Homer and knocking off the defending league champion Trojans 37-29.
It was true that Homer, who has won the B West division each of the last two years, lacked many of the players that carried them to those titles due to graduation. Also, the Trojans had barely won its Sept. 2 opener, squeaking past Cortland 9-3.
Still, no one on Marcellus made the mistake of taking Homer lightly, even when Tom Fiacchi tore through the Trojans’ defenses on a 45-yard touchdown in the first quarter. Fiacchi’s counterpart, Jacob Rivers, answered later in the period with a 13-yard scoring pass to Matt Guerrero.
They continued to go back and forth early in the second quarter, Homer answering FIacchi’s 33-yard field goal with a scoring drive capped by Josh Horner’s two-yard line. But that was the last time the Trojans would lead.
Another big play, Fiacchi going 49 yards to Nate Galloway for the TD, put the Mustangs in front for good, and Fiacchi added a 12-yard scoring run right before halftime, so Marcellus enjoyed a 24-13 lead at the break.
Every time Homer tried to rally, Marcellus provided an answer, even overcoming a safety when Fiacchi, from 11 yards out, scored his third rushing TD of the night, ultimately more than the Trojans could overcome.
Marcellus next will defend the Tom Anthony Silver Cup at Solvay, who rebounded from its season-opening 29-0 shutout to Chittenango by pulling out a tough 20-14 decision over Fowler at Corcoran High School.
A blocked punt by the Falcons put the Bearcats behind again, 6-0, just three minutes into the game, and that deficit grew to 14-0 in the second period as Solvay remained in search of its first points of the fall.
Just a minute before halftime, Zach Chrysler got those points with a TD run that made it 14-6. Breaking that shutout string seemed to affect the entire team, for early in the third quarter Jake Dippold found Connor Lee for a 20-yard scoring pass.
Solvay wasn’t done, either. Dippold’s 30-yard run set up another drive that Alex Britton finished off by going 11 yards to the goal line. Adding the two-point conversion, the Bearcats led by six with one quarter left.
Through that tense final period, Solvay’s defense made the key plays, stopping Fowler at its own 30 on downs with 8:09 left. Then, Chrysler was injured, and after a long delay to tend to him, the Bearcats fumbled it back to the Falcons on the next play.
Steadily, Fowler drove to Solvay’s two-yard line. Needing a goal-line stand, the Bearcats again forced fourth down – and again stopped it with 2:17 to play, able to run out the remaining clock and give Todd Lisi his first win as varsity head coach.
While Marcellus and Solvay evened their marks at 1-1, Westhill went in the other direction in its home opener against Skaneateles, its fast-paced offense not even getting on the board once in a 35-7 defeat to the Lakers.
From the outset, the Skaneateles defense was dominant, using its speed and aggression to contain Westhill’s skill players. The only points the Warriors scored came on a Lakers punt early in the second quarter that Casey Rogers blocked, the ball rolling into the end zone where Jack Gilmartin recovered.
By the time that took place, the Lakers were on the board thanks to Areh Boni’s nine-yard TD run in the opening period. And right after the blocked punt, Skaneateles drove down the field, and Boni would find the end zone again on a nine-yard pass from Hackler that gave the visitors the lead for good.
But it was a pair of big plays that wounded Westhill beyond repair. One came right before halftime when, from the Warriors’ 21, Hackler threw deep and found Nate Wellington, who took it the rest of the way, the 79-yard TD suddenly making it 21-7 at the break.
Now worried about the long throw, the Warriors forgot that Hackler could run, too. From the Warriors’ 45 in the third quarter, Hackler read the pass rush and took off, not getting caught by anyone as he further extended the Skaneateles margin.
Even with a 28-7 lead, Skaneateles did not let up, putting together one more scoring drive in the fourth quarter that Boni finished off with his third TD of the night on a 10-yard run.
It also proved a rough Friday for West Genesee, who fell to 0-2 with a 35-12 defeat to Baldwinsville in the first game played on the new Field Turf surface at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium.
Fittingly, it was a Bees running back, Jack Buis, who scored the first football points on this new turf, finding blocks and going 28 yards to the end zone in the first quarter. Ben Dwyer’s extra point gave B’ville a 7-0 lead.
Early in the second quarter, that margin doubled when E.J. Edmonds capped another scoring drive with a two-yard TD plunge, but West Genesee answered with a march of its own that was capped by Liam Barry’s 30-yard scoring pass to Marcus Hudgins.
Unfazed by this, the Bees went right back to the ground, not letting up until Buis had scored a second time from nine yards out. That made it 21-7, where it stood at halftime.
Any hopes of a Wildcats comeback got dashed by the Bees’ defense – specifically, Thor Sutphen, who intercepted Barry and returned the pass 32 yards to the end zone in the third quarter, extending the Bees’ margin to 28-7 as Dwyer made it four-for-four with PAT’s.
About the only thing that went wrong on this night for B’ville was that Dwyer missed a fifth extra-point attempt following Nick Cacciola’s 34-yard TD run in the final period. WG added a late touchdown on Zak Mills’ nine-yard run.
