When they meet up next weekend, the Jamesville-DeWitt and East Syracuse Minoa football teams will likely have the Class A American division regular-season championship at stake.
Both sides tore through their respective league openers on Friday night, with the Red Rams putting up big offensive numbers in a 49-20 victory over Fulton and the Spartans excelling on both sides of the ball as it beat Cortland 34-6.
This was the second week that J-D had Jake Wright starting at quarterback following Josh Kowalczyk’s injury in the Sept. 2 season-opening loss to Carthage.
But Adam Honis would replace Wright under center early in this game, and it was clear that, It was clear that, unlike its 13-7 win over Watertown the week before, the Rams were more comfortable with Honis in charge.
Wright capped off the Rams’ first scoring march with a five-yard scoring strike to Mike Anderson. After Fulton got on the board with Cameron Adams’ three-yard touchdown run, Wright moved J-D right back down the field until Honis scored from three yards out.
J-D blanked the Red Raiders in the second quarter and nabbed the only points as Honis started to throw deep, finding Casey Platenik for a 52-yard scoring reception. Matt Cappelletti made it three-for-three on extra points and the Rams led Fulton 21-6 at the break.
Gradually, J-D pulled clear in the second half. Honis hit on his second TD pass, 32 yards to Anderson, after Eli Williams scored on a three-yard run, but even with a 35-12 edge, the Rams weren’t done with big plays.
Jai Benson, catching a pass from Honis, matched Platenik’s earlier 52-yard distance on his lone scoring play of the night, while Shaleek Giles wrapped things up with a 53-yard dash to the end zone. Cappelletti didn’t miss on any of his seven conversion attempts.
So now J-D could get ready for ESM’s visit. The Spartans, having rallied late to beat New Hartford the week before, stood at no. 20 in the first state Class A rankings of the fall, and weren’t going to get hurt by what took place against Cortland.
Early on, ESM’s defense made a big stop of a long Purple Tigers drive. Then, from his own seven-yard line, Jeff Loder found a seam and took off, 93 yards to the other end zone.
Keegan Brown’s 76-yard TD run brought Cortland back within one, and though it missed the PAT, its defense did a solid job containing the Spartans to keep the game 7-6 going into halftime.
All season long, though, ESM has proven itself a second-half team. Counting what happened next, it has outscored Indian River, New Hartford and Cortland by a combined 57-0 in the last two periods.
Taking the third-quarter kickoff, the Spartans immediately added to its lead as Loder found the end zone for the second time, from 32 yards out.Then Tom Ghika’s interception set up Loder’s 12-yard TD run on a night where the senior quarterback had 191 yards on the ground on just 12 carries.
As if his offensive contributions weren’t enough, Loder also had an intercpetion late in the period deep in Purple Tigers territory, leading to a short field and Ny’Zhier Jefferson scoring on a one-yard plunge.
Not to be left out of the end zone, Greg Buck, who was targeted by Cortland’s defenders yet still managed 120 yards on 22 carries, scored on a nine-yard run in the fourth quarter, and ESM could look ahead to J-D.
