From a purely technical standpoint, the most important part of the weekend for the Bishop Ludden football team took place far from East Syracuse, where it was engaged in a regular-season finale against private-school rival Bishop Ludden.
The Class D East regular-season title was determined by Frankfort-Schuyler’s game at Dolgeville. The result would decide whichever one of three teams – the Maroon Knights or Blue Devils, or West Canada Valley – would finish atop the league standings.
That mattered to the Gaelic Knights because that first-place finisher would host Ludden, the fourth-place finisher in Class D North/West, in this weekend’s opening round of the sectional playoffs.
Dolgeville won that game, 62-23, over Frankfort-Schuyler, and claimed the three-way tie-breaker over the Maroon Knights and West Canada. That means the Gaelic Knights will play this Saturday at 1:30 at Dolgeville, with the winner to take on Sandy Creek or West Canada next weekend in the sectional semifinals.
Ludden only had local bragging rights on the line at Grimes, but still claimed them with an easy 31-0 victory where most of the points were scored in the first half and the Gaelic Knights didn’t exert itself too much, knowing more important stuff lay ahead.
By the end of the first quarter, it was already 19-0. Grimes fumbled on its opening possession, and Ludden turned them to points when Sh’ikem Lee found Joe Connor for a 32-yard touchdown pass.
Minutes later, Lee found Connor again in the end zone, this time from 15 yards out, and after Dylan Carbonaro’s sack caused another Cobras turnover at its own 30 (Nick Caccione recovered the fumble), Kevin Burkhart ran 20 yards before Keandre Sanders scored on the next play.
Not until the second quarter did the Cobras sustain any kind of drive, but Ludden snuffed that out, as it would any other chance during the game. Sanders then caught a 42-yard scoring pass from Lee, which extended the margin to 25-0, where it stood at halftime.
All that the Gaelic Knights got in the second half was a deep pass from Lee to Connor that covered 77 yards. Meanwhile, the defense steadily turned back all of Grimes’ drives to preserve the team’s first shutout of the season.
A night earlier, Jordan-Elbridge hosted Pulaski, both sides looking to avoid a winless campaign in the Class C North/West division, and it the Eagles proving successful in that quest, roaring to a 49-14 victory over the Blue Devils.
Meanwhile, West Genesee saw its regular season end without a victory as it put a small scare into unbeaten, state Class AA no. 9-ranked Christian Brothers Academy, but still saw the Brothers run away and prevail 62-12.
Even with SirVocea Dennis finding Jacob Moser on a 36-yard TD pass in the first quarter, WG tied it, 7-7, when a fumble found its way to the end zone and John Northrop fell on it.
The getaway began with a pair of second-quarter scoring drives, one ended by Dennis with a three-yard TD run, the other culminating in Stevie Scott going 50 yards to the end zone.
Yet even a 21-7 halftime lead did not satisfy the Brothers that much, for its piled up 26 points in the third quarter to put the game away, doing so even though the Wildcats also got a touchdown with Matt Kot’s one-yard plunge.
During that flurry, Dennis threw a 45-yard scoring pass to Hasan Bridges-Beyah and ran 43 yards for another TD. Scott, who ran for 147 yards on just nine carries, scored a second time on a 57-yard run, and defensive captain Dan Damico returned an interception 32 yards for six points.
West Genesee will again attempt to earn a victory Thursday night at Liverpool, the same team that won the section III Class AA title a year ago, but went 1-4 in the AA-2 division to miss the playoffs. J-E will play at Sherburne-Earlville on Friday night.
