In extremely different manners, the Jordan-Elbridge and Bishop Ludden football teams found themselves at the same .500 mark of 2-2 at the end of Friday’s action.
Late in the afternoon, J-E made its way to Phoenix and, with Dale Wagner scoring five touchdowns, the Eagles rolled to its second consecutive victory, topping the Firebirds 59-24.
Meanwhile, Ludden was at Onondaga, knowing a win would pull them to the top of the Class D Northwest division, but it never could contain the Tigers’ potent passing attack in an 40-20 defeat.
Following an 0-2 start, J-E had gained much-needed momentum from beating Tully in its Sept. 16 homer opener. Seven days later, it put Phoenix away with a 29-point second-quarter outburst.
By then, it was already 8-0 thanks to Wagner’s first-quarter TD on a five-yard run and Dominic Walborn’s two-point conversion, but once Walborn found Wagner on a 20-yard scoring pass early in the second period, the rout was on.
Walborn connected on two more scoring passes, going 29 yards to Wagner and then finding Brandon Wick from 36 yards out. Then Wagner returned to blaze 79 yards to the end zone that made it 37-0 going into halftime.
Wagner still wasn’t done, as he snared a pass from Walborn and went 55 yards for his fifth TD early in the third quarter. Dylan Dunham, from five yards, and Marion Quigley, from 40 yards, would add two more scores in the game’s latter stages.
J-E returns home next Friday to face Altmar-Parish-Williamstown in a game crucial to its Section III Class C playoff hopes, while Bishop Ludden faces the same situation in Class D following its rough trip to Onondaga.
Off to a 3-0 start, the Tigers shared first place in D Northwest with Watertown IHC, who had handed Ludden its only other defeat this season Sept. 4 at the Carrier Dome.
Quickly, OCS jumped on the Gaelic Knights, taking the opening kickoff and using more than six minutes of clock to reach the end zone on Akim Betsey’s five-yard run and Bryce Macina’s two-point pass to Dylan Stellmack.
Trailing 8-0, Ludden answered with a drive of its own as Sh’ikem Lee found Joe Connor in the end zone from seven yards out, but it missed the conversion, trailed 8-6, and would never get so close again.
As with J-E, the second quarter proved decisive, only Ludden was on the receiving end of a 26-point OCS barrage that began with Macina’s 41-yard scoring pass to Stellmack, plus Evan Gantley’s two-point run.
Connor electrified Ludden partisans by returning the ensuing kickoff 80 yards for a TD, but it couldn’t recover the ensuing onside kick and, two plays later, Macina went deep again and found Landon Baxter on a 50-yard scoring strike.
That play, more than any other, wounded Ludden, for the Tigers quickly added to its lead on Macina’s third TD pass, 16 yards to Stellmack, and a fourth scoring pass followed when Macina found Gantley from 24 yards out.
Suddenly, a close game had turned into a 34-13 halftime margin, and Ludden was unable to recover, not scoring again until the fourth quarter on Lee’s six-yard run.
While Ludden prepares for another tough assignment next Friday against defending sectional Class D champion Sandy Creek, West Genesee is still in search of its first win of the season following a 34-12 defeat to Rome Free Academy.
What made that result more frustrating was that the Wildcats, thanks to a pair of second-quarter touchdowns, only trailed by one, 13-12, at halftime. Dan Purcell’s five-yard run got WG on the board, and Liam Barry threw a 42-yard scoring pass to Noah Sabatino.
In between those plays, though, RFA struck with Jaquan Rollins’ 12-yard TD run and Tristan Hunzinger finding Nate Korrigan in the end zone from 22 yards out. That, plus two missed conversions on the Wildcats’ part, hurt the visitors.
On both sides of the ball, the second half belonged to RFA, who blanked WG while seeing Rollins score once more on a five-yard run before Hunzinger locked it up, hitting on back-to-back TD passes of 15 and 22 yards to Craig Gazzill.
WG, like J-E and Ludden, is back home next Friday, taking on Henninger for a 6:30 kickoff. Each side is 0-4 and doesn’t want to end September with a fifth consecutive defeat.
