When the Section III Class B playoffs kick off next weekend, the Marcellus football team will be in front of its home crowd, sporting a six-game win streak and the belief that, with its defense in top form, any opponent is beatable.
That defense came through again Friday night at Westhill, where the Mustangs shut out the Warriors for the last three quarters of a 20-6 victory.
Even though it had won five in a row and had a 4-1 record in Class B West going into the game, Marcellus still had not locked up second place in the division. A Westhill win would give both sides 4-2 league marks, creating a three-way tie for second with Chittenango, who was busy defeating Solvay 27-7 on this same night.
The Mustangs wanted no part of any tie-breaker that might force them to travel to Cazenovia or Vernon-Verona-Sherrill in the first round, and were also eager to show its one-time head coach, Joe Fiacchi (now a Westhill assistant), how much it had improved under Fiacchi’s successor, Nick Patterson.
Yet it was Westhll with the strong start punctuated by Marcus Welch’s 54-yard touchdown run in the opening period, the only points for either team in the first half.
With its own offense struggling, Marcellus turned to the other side of the ball, which made sure that Westhill got nothing after Welch’s long run and kept things at 6-0 going into intermission.
Only in the third quarter did the Mustangs break through, driving to Westhill’s 10 before Nick Patterson Jr. scored the tying TD on a quarterback scramble.
All game long, Rob Seeley, running behind the tough Marcellus offensive line, chewed up time and gained plenty of ground, finishing with 174 yards on 26 carries.
Fittingly, it was Seeley going five yards for the go-ahead score early in the fourth quarter, Natalie Clere adding the extra point. And another long drive sealed the Mustangs victory as Mike Licamele added a three-yard TD run.
Meanwhile, Solvay, its post-season hopes dashed the week before in a narrow 16-14 defeat to Westhill, looked for some redemption at Chittenango, but the Bears were bent on ending its own three-game skid and would do so.
Brian Lamaitis got the Bears on the board by throwing a 60-yard scoring pass to Keith Spurgeon in the first quarter. Then Chittenango’s run attack got going during two second-period drives, ended with TD runs of four yards by Griffen Smith and 16 yards by Francis Cerio.
Thus, despite a 47-yard TD run by Solvay’s John Bliss, the Bearcats trailed 21-7 at halftime, and the Bears’ defense took over from there, especially Brian Coe, who had 10 tackles, and Sam Hill, who finished with eight tackles.
Offensively, the running of Cero (86 yards on 14 carries) and Smith (65 yards on 10 carries) pushed Chittenango along, and Laimatis tacked on a one-yard TD plunge in the third quarter to further stretch out the margin.
Next Friday, Marcellus will host Utica-Notre Dame, the third-place finisher in B East, in the opening round of the sectional playoffs, while Westhill has the tough task of traveling Saturday to unbeaten, state no. 5-ranked defending sectional champion Cazenovia.
