Big numbers in lopsided games can propel someone toward a championship level, but actually winning those titles requires something deeper and tougher, and often features the need to play well in high-pressure situations.
The Skaneateles football team faced precisely that scenario in Saturday night’s Section III Class C semifinal at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium, needing to make big plays on both sides of the ball down the stretch to defeat Canastota 28-21.
Having gone back and forth all game long, the state no. 8-ranked Lakers and state no. 3-ranked Raiders were tied, 21-21, when Skaneateles took possession on its own 31-yard line with less than four minutes left.
With 2:37 to play, still sitting on his own 35, Pat Hackler dropped back to throw. He delivered a swing pass to Nick Wamp on the right side at the 40, and Wamp broke a tackle before taking off down the sideline, outrunning the entire Canastota defense as he reached the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.
Wamp added the extra point, and the Lakers were back in front, but far from safe.
Canastota, whose ground game had proved so effective throughout the first half, began a steady march that moved inside the Lakers’ 30 in the final minute.
Here, though, the Skaneateles defense, which had blanked the Raiders in the second half, did so once more, stopping a fourth-and-three at the 27 when Josh Marshall threw an incomplete pass, and ultimately running out the clock.
Going in, the Lakers knew that containing Canastota would prove difficult, and Ben Marshall proved that point by amassing 188 yards on 22 carries in the first half.
Marshall’s 44-yard TD run less than four minutes into the game gave Canastota a 7-0 lead. Hackler, who threw for seven touchdowns in the Lakers’ first-round playoff win over Little Falls Oct. 21, offered a response late in the first quarter by scrambling out of the pocket and going 38 yards for the tying score.
Darien Fox intercepted Hackler early in the second period and, one play later, Marshall threw a 23-yard TD pass to Brandon Otts as Canstota went back in front, only to have Hackler pull his team even again with a steady drive capped by a 13-yard scoring pass to Wamp.
With 34.2 seconds left in the half, Canastota moved to the Lakers’ 11, where on fourth down Marshall faked an option pitch and ran it himself for his second TD – and the last one the Raiders would score.
Hackler, who only completed six of 12 passes in the first half for 137 yards, quickly moved Skaneateles to the Canastota 26 at the start of the third quarter. When Jacob Nesbitt slipped past the Raiders secondary into the clear at the end zone, Hackler found him, and Wamp’s extra point tied it again, 21-21.
For the rest of the third quarter and a good portion of the fourth quarter, it stayed there, but just in time Wamp produced the big play required and the defense made that lead stick.
So it’s on to the Carrier Dome for the sectional Class C final next Saturday at 11 a.m., where the 8-1 Lakers will meet 9-0, state no. 2-ranked General Brown, who easily handled Sherburne-Earlville 41-8 in the other semifinal game.
