Both the East Syracuse Minoa and Jamesville-DeWitt football teams moved on nicely from their head-to-head Sept. 24 encounter that went so decisively in the Spartans’ favor.
ESM, unbeaten and no. 15 in the state Class A rankings, returned home Friday night and used 28 second-quarter points to pull away from Fowler on the way to a 57-6 victory over the Falcons. J-D, meanwhile, went to Cortland and did not give up a point, blanking the Purple Tigers 25-0.
What made ESM’s 7-0 first-quarter lead on Fowler so unusual was that it didn’t come from its dominant ground game. Instead, it was Jeff Loder’s 20-yard scoring pass to Darian Crossman that got the Spartans on the board.
Soon enough, though, ESM would return to its offensive staple in front of its Homecoming crowd. Fifty seconds into the second quarter, Gabe Holloman found the end zone from eight yards out. Four minutes later, Greg Buck’s six-yard touchdown run made it 21-0.
Not done yet, Buck would score twice more in the second period, on runs of 11 and six yards. With Alec Keresredjian converting on all five of his extra-point attempts in wet, windy conditions, the Spartans took a 35-0 lead to halftime.
Loder, David Agans and Dan Garris would all score touchdowns in the second half. Buck finished with 109 yards on 18 carries, balanced out by Loder completing seven of nine passes for 114 yards.
ESM filled the empty spot on its schedule by scheduling a game with Section X’s Massena, which will take place next Saturday at 4 p.m. at Watertown High School.
J-D, just as it did earlier this season following a loss to Carthage, rebounded from a defeat with an impressive all-around effort at Cortland to all but lock up a Class A playoff first-round home game.
All game long, the Red Rams’ defense stopped whatever the Purple Tigers tried to establish, while patiently waiting for its own offense to find the end zone. It did so with quaterback Adam Honis scoring on a six-yard run.
Only owning a 6-0 halftime lead, J-D doubled that margin in the third quarter when Honis nabbed his second TD from five yards out. The Rams didn’t score any more offensive points, but didn’t need to, either.
Cortland, desperate to get back in the game, forced mistakes, and Mike Crossett intercepted a pass deep in Purple Tigers territory, returning it six yards for a TD. Minutes later, Trey Greene returned another pick 69 yards for six points. J-D plays Fowler next Friday at 6:30.
While all this was going on, Bishop Grimes broke into the win column at Hannibal, breaking a three-game skid with a 16-7 victory over the Warriors.
Six days earlier, the Cobras had lost, 42-20, to Port Byron/Union Springs, the second defeat to the Panthers in September following a 22-14 loss at the Carrier Dome earlier in the month.
Against Hannibal, though, Grimes’ defense stood out, not allowing anything other than Art Donahue’s two-yard TD run in the second quarter, and even with that, the Cobras led 8-7 at halftime thanks to Shawn Gashi’s run and a two-point conversion.
That Cobras defense got on the board in the third quarter with a safety to make it 10-7, and Gashi returned to score again in the fourth quarter, all but putting the game away. Grimes returns home next Saturday to face Oriskany for a noon kickoff.
