Through two weeks, and two lopsided victories, the Baldwinsville football team had not dealt with any sort of serious adversity, at least in terms of wondering how the games would turn out.
That changed on Saturday afternoon, when the Bees entered Class AA-2 division play and got pushed hard by Utica Proctor, requiring big plays early and late from Aquari Warner to defeat the Raiders 35-22.
The strong start by B’ville had placed them at no. 17 in the first state Class AA rankings of the season, behind CBA (no. 8) and Cicero-North Syracuse (no. 13), but still held in fairly high regard.
Proctor had gone 1-1 to start its season, and at the outset struggled like previous opponents had in the face of B’ville’s defense. Forced to punt, the Raiders saw the Bees block that kick, and Warner returned it for a special-teams touchdown.
Warner returned to cap B’ville’s first scoring drive of the game with an eight-yard TD run with 7:15 left in the half. Down 14-0, Proctor answered, getting its own eight-yard scoring sprint by Jalen Woodsen.
Now the Bees’ passing game, which wasn’t required much in the routs of Corning and Elmira, emerged. From the Raiders’ 21, Ben Dwyer went to the end zone and found Austin Lehman, the touchdown extending B’ville’s lead to 21-6 going to halftime.
A scoreless third quarter did not increase B’ville’s security, for Proctor cut the lead to 21-14 early in the final period on Landon Johnson’s 40-yard scoring run, something he repeated with 4:20 to play after a Bees drive that Dwyer capped with a two-yard TD plunge.
With the score 28-22, B’ville may have felt comfortable running out the clock, but Warner did better than that, breaking free at midfield on a 52-yard dash to the end zone that finally put Proctor away.
B’ville returns to Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium on Friday to host Liverpool, who is 1-2 after suffering its second consecutive shutout loss to C-NS 41-0. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
