When it was announced in August that Oswego would not play varsity football in 2016, it left East Syracuse Minoa and Jamesvillle-DeWitt without regular-season games in October.
Given the time to fill that unscheduled gap in its schedule, the Spartans did find another opponent, Massena, and traveled to Watertown High School on Saturday afternoon to take on the Red Raiders.
Armed with an unbeaten (5-0) mark and no. 16 state Class A ranking, ESM wasted little time taking control, scoring 43 unanswered points in the first half and going on to rout Massena 51-10.
Barely two minutes had passed before the Spartans had its first touchdown, scored by Greg Buck on a 35-yard run. Less than four minutes later, it was 14-0 when Buck found the end zone again on a five-yard run.
With 3:03 left in the first quarter, David Agans joined the fun with a 21-yard touchdown run, but even this 21-0 lead did not make the Spartans content.
Already having scored twice, Buck secured a third TD early in the second quarter when he partially jumped over a Red Raiders defender on a 14-yard dash to the end zone. Not stopping there, Buck used a 50-yard punt to set up ESM’s defense for a safety that made it 30-0.
The safety led to a free kick and yet another Spartans scoring drive that Ny’Zhier Jefferson finished with an 11-yard scoring run. Agans returned to score from 22 yards out with 3:24 left in the half.
With that big halftime lead, the Spartans used reserves throughout the second half, but Dan Garris still scored on a four-yard run in the fourth quarter. ESM will take on Fulton this Friday to try and complete an undefeated regular season.
A day earlier, at Corcoran High School, J-D would end its regular season against Fowler and move to 4-2 with a “special” effort that resulted in a 47-6 victory over the Falcons.
Any problems the Red Rams may have faced early with Fowler vanished when it pulled off the rare feat of scoring 21 unanswered points on special teams.
When it started, the game was tied, 6-6, as Mike Anderson’s 31-yard TD run answered the Falcons’ defense getting on the board with Antonio Saba’s 30-yard fumble return.
Then the Rams blocked a Fowler punt, and Jake Wright picked it up at the Falcons’ 26 and ran into the end zone. Minutes later, the Falcons did get off the punt, but Anderson, receiving it at midfield, brought it back 51 yards for six more points.
Those big plays gave J-D a 20-6 halftime lead, but it got more when Trey Green took the second-half kickoff and brought it back 82 yards for a TD. The Rams also got a safety from Shaleek Giles and a 34-yard field goal from Matt Cappelletti and Anderson added a pair of late-game scores.
On Saturday, Bishop Grimes lost at home to Oriskany, 32-14, unable to recover from a first quarter when Oriskany scored 20 unanswered points, Ryan Enos scoring twice on runs of one and 19 yards and a 25-yard pass to Chad Jackson.
Shawn Gashi cut the Cobras’ deficit to 20-6 in the second quarter, returning an Enos interception 43 yards for a TD, but Grimes didn’t score again until the the early stages of the final period with Jordan Newman’s 60-yard scoring pass to Dom Delvecchio.
Enos would prevent a Cobras comeback, though, by scoring twice more on runs of seven and five yards. Grimes will host its cross-town private-school rivals from Bishop Ludden next Saturday at noon.
