A perfect September for the Cicero-North Syracuse football team that began with a victory in the Carrier Dome on the first day of the month concluded with a far more decisive win a few miles down the road on the last day of the month.
When the state Class AA no. 17-ranked Northstars rolled past Nottingham 38-6 on Friday night, it improved to 5-0 on the season and 3-0 in the AA-2 division, setting up a first-place showdown next weekend with Baldwinsville, who is also 3-0 in the league following a 47-22 victory over Auburn.
C-NS knew it couldn’t look past Nottingham toward the B’ville clash. The Bulldogs, after all, were 3-1, and had just won on the road at Utica Proctor, possessing big-play ability and plenty of speed on both sides of the ball.
Against all this, the Northstars charted the same course that had worked quite well so far – a patient offense that wore the opposition down and a defense that almost got the team’s third shutout in four weeks.
Nottingham nearly kept C-NS off the board in the first quarter, but just before it ended the Northstars moved to the Bulldogs’ 20, from where Conner Hayes found Landry Rogers in the end zone.
Each time Nottingham had the ball, it could not move much, and with the C-NS defense again in top form, it could maintain a 6-0 lead deep into the second period without a lot of stress.
All of that changed, though, with 49 seconds left in the half. Having driven from his own 32 to the Bulldogs’ 18, Hayes again went to the end zone, where Lucas Merlozzi fought off a defender (Nottingham thought it was offensive interference) and caught the touchdown.
Great as C-NS felt about that play, it felt even better when the defense put points on the board thanks to a forced fumble that Rogers scooped up and returned 20 yards for the touchdown just 17 seconds after Merlozzi scored.
Suddenly, a close game was now a 21-0 halftime advantage, and the frustrations it caused Nottingham led to a rash of penalties for the rest of the game, preventing any comeback.
Meanwhile, Erik Pride got on the board with a six-yard scoring run early in the third quarter, and Jeremiah Willis became the sixth different Northstar to net a TD when he found the end zone from 39 yards out.
Brad Davies would add a 22-yard field goal, with C-NS’s lone disappointment of the night the fact that the Bulldogs broke up the shutout against the reserves late in the fourth quarter on Zavann Thompson’s three-yard run.
And now it’s on to Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, where C-NS awaits the challenge of Baldwinsville. The main event will center around a Northstars defense that has surrendered just 27 points all season trying to contain B’ville’s famous ground attack, anchored by tailback Jack Buis, who got 271 yards and four touchdowns against Auburn.
A year ago, it was Liverpool receiving all of the accolades on the way to a Section III Class AA championship. Now, though, the Warriors are in danger of missing the post-season following last Saturday’s tough 14-10 defeat to Utica Proctor.
All seemed fine for the Warriors when, in the second quarter, it used Patrick Delgobbo’s 24-yard field goal and Will Clayton’s 54-yard dash to the end zone to take a 10-0 lead. Yet the Raiders got on the board when Jamarious Morgan broke free for a 25-yard TD run in the third quarter.
Liverpool clung to that 10-7 lead deep into the final period, but Proctor mounted one more drive that culminated with Morgan scoring from 32 yards out with 1:20 to play, and the Warriors could not answer it.
The Warriors are 0-3 in league play, so any hope of getting into the sectional playoffs depends on winning both of its remaining regular-season games against teams right in front of them – including Nottingham, who visits LHS Stadium this Friday before an Oct. 14 regular-season finale at Auburn.
