What the Cazenovia football team kept from Homer in 2016, the Trojans took from the Lakers 12 months later.
In fact, what Homer accomplished in Saturday’s 28-20 victory over the Lakers in the Section III Class B final at the Carrier Dome was a comprehensive effort on both sides of the ball for three quarters until a frantic comeback from the reigning champions made things interesting in the final minutes.
“We dug ourselves too deep of a hole,” said Lakers head coach Jay Steinhorst.”But I’m super proud of the way this team finished the game.”
Payback was certainly on the Trojans’ mind in the wake of Cazenovia’s 31-7 win over them in last November’s sectional title game. With both teams sporting 9-0 records and top-five state rankings, it projected as a close, hard-fought battle, but didn’t turn out that way – for most of the game, anyway.
Receiving the opening kickoff, Homer marched 59 yards, most of it on the ground. Krillin Drake took a reverse handoff at the Lakers’ 33 and sprinted to the end zone to give the Trojans a lead before the game was four minutes old.
Just as important was what took place on Homer’s second possession. Facing fourth down at the Lakers’ 45, the Trojans lined up to punt – but Tucker O’Donnell took the snap and ran for a first down.
It led to Zach Barber’s six-yard touchdown run and a 14-0 lead in the last minute of the first quarter, and when Cazenovia flubbed the ensuing kickoff, the Trojans recovered and scored again on Dominick Natale’s three-yard run.
Throughout this early spurt, Cazenovia’s offense had not recorded a first down. For the first half, the Lakers were held to 58 total yards, and it got worse when Dante Yacavone intercepted a fourth-down Matt Regan pass and returned it 55 yards for a TD.
Somehow, the Lakers slowed things down, with a Dan Hammond interception, kept Homer from scoring again late in the half, but a 28-0 deficit at intermission seemed too much to overcome, given how well Homer was playing.
“They (Homer) were bigger and more physical than we had anticipated,” said Steinhorst. “It limited our play-calling.”
The second half proved quite different, in terms of the way the Lakers performed on both sides of the ball, not letting Homer add to its considerable lead as the defense settled down.
Yet Cazenovia saw two drives inside the Trojans’ 20-yard line did not lead to any points, but the Lakers did not give up, and what happened late in the fourth quarter turned a rout into an unexpected drama.
Jake Macheda’s 55-yard TD run with 4:35 to play was followed by the recovery of an onside kick and another scoring drive capped by Regan catching a five-yard scoring pass from Matt McLaughlin.
Again, the Lakers tried an onside kick and again managed to get the ball. Regan used a pair of long completions to Drew Johnson and Kevin Stalder to set up his own one-yard TD plunge with 44 seconds left.
Only when a third Lakers onside kick went out of bounds could Homer exhale and advance to a regional final next weekend against Chenango Forks. Cazenovia finished with a 9-1 mark, another Class B East regular-season title and a sixth straight sectional finals appearance.
