Adam Honis knew he could throw it to the end zone. Mike Anderson knew he could beat the defensive coverage and catch it.
More importantly, the Jamesville-DeWitt football team knew that, unlike many times in recent seasons, it could take whatever punishment East Syracuse Minoa gave to them and respond with poise and confidence.
It all manifested itself in Honis firing that 20-yard touchdown pass to Anderson in overtime, which gave the Red Rams a 26-20 victory over the Spartans and a spot alongside Indian River atop the Class A standings.
“You measure yourself against the premier teams, and ESM is one of the best,” said J-D head coach Eric Ormond. “To stand with them toe-to-toe says a lot about our kids.”
“It feels amazing,” said Anderson. “It’s a big team win. We have guys that want to work hard and are unselfish. And this time, we executed.”
This was a game decided not by the mistakes the teams made, for there were plenty of them on both sides. The difference was that, quite often, J-D turned ESM’s errors into points.
It started with a bad Spartans punt snap early in the first quarter that put the Rams on the Spartans’ 18. Honis gave J-D a 7-0 lead with an eight-yard scoring pass to Jake Wright.
From there, ESM controlled most of the rest of the first half through its trademark ground attack, pulling even, 7-7, when Alex Recor pounced on a fumble after Dan Garris fumbled on a scramble from the Rams’ 17.
Garris led a 70-yard second-quarter march, all on the ground, the Spartans quarterback converting a fourth-and-five right before Ny’Zhier Jefferson scored from three yards out to put ESM in front 14-7.
Even with that, and even with Honis throwing a pair of interceptions, J-D capitalized again when the Spartans fumbled near midfield late in the half. The Rams drove to the ESM three and, with 1.6 seconds left, Honis hit Anderson, who powered into the end zone.
The 14-14 halftime tie endured until another bad Spartans snap on a fourth down set up another short J-D drive in the third quarter, capped by Wright’s five-yard TD run. ESM again tied it with a drive of its own that Garris finished with an 11-yard scoring scramble on the first play of the final period.
For the last 11-plus minutes of regulation, the two neighbors kept putting themselves in position to win it, and kept giving it away, including a pair of last-minute interceptions inside the opponent’s 10-yard line – one by J-D’s Ryan Vespi, another by Recor as the clock ran out.
In high school football, the overtime rules gives each team a possession at the 20-yard line. J-D won the toss and chose to go on defense, hoping to stop ESM’s ground attack – which it did when Garris was stopped inches short of the 10 on fourth down.
What happened next, said Ormond, was a tribute to the work of offensive coordinator Kevin Kalfass, who noticed a match-up that favored the Rams and called for a pass play to end it right away.
Anderson said that he knew he could beat his defender one-on-one, and did so, making a catch just inside the left sideline and triggering a big celebration from the J-D players. For the night, Anderson had 108 receiving yards on eight catches as Garris paced the ESM runners with 114 yards on 23 carries.
Honis said that part of the satisfaction of this win was the fact that his team spoiled ESM’s Homecoming festivities – payback for the Spartans doing the same to J-D one year ago.
Now, as ESM gets set to host Watertown next Friday, J-D will attempt to follow up this big win as it faces PSLA-Fowler next Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. Ormond said it’s important that his team show that it won’t let down following a win as big as the one over the Spartans.
