A miracle seemed at hand for the Baldwinsville football team as it tried to chase down Cicero-North Syracuse in last Saturday night’s Section III Class AA final at the Carrier Dome.
When the Bees scored twice in the latter stages of the first half, including a trick play as the clock hit zero, cutting its 28-0 deficit in half, dreams of an epochal comeback to deny the undefeated Northstars its first-ever sectional title flickered.
But C-NS, spearheaded by a wondrous effort from junior quarterback Conner Hayes, proved too good and pulled away to beat B’ville 56-21, finally earning the sectional title that had eluded them for so many decades.
Five years had passed since B’ville had played in a sectional final, six years since it last won the AA title. But at least the Bees had championships to celebrate – C-NS, having lost to CBA in the 2016 final, had never won a sectional final, adding a layer of pressure B’ville didn’t have to worry about.
Still, there was the shadow of that 67-31 defeat the Bees took at Bragman Stadium on Oct. 6, a game where all 31 of B’ville’s points were scored in the first half before the Northstars got away in the last two periods.
The Bees knew that it could not let C-NS run wild on them and focused its defensive strategy on stopping Northstars tailback Erik Pride, who had torched them for 296 yards and four touchdowns in that meeting a month ago.
All that did, though, was turn Hayes loose as he threw five TD passes and ran for two other scores.
Hayes started making plays after Nate Geloff’s interception on the Bees’ first possession. A 25-yard run on third-down-and-eight that broke several tackles led to a nine-yard scoring pass to Peyton Watts.
More would follow in the first half, from a pump fake and a 24-yard TD pass to a wide-open Lukas Merluzzi to a screen pass to Pride that turned into a 75-yard dash to the end zone.
By the time Hayes dashed 10 yards for his second rushing TD, C-NS had a 28-0 lead, and appeared safe. But late in the first half, B’ville fought its way back.
Ben Dwyer finished off one scoring drive with a seven-yard run. Then, on the last play of the half, Dwyer, from the C-NS 39, threw a lateral to Austin Lehman, who heaved it downfield to Gabe Horan and saw Horan fight his way past the goal line as time ran out.
Just like that, a 28-point deficit was carved in half, with ample time for the Bees to make up more ground if it could ever make a few stops. Hayes made sure that didn’t happen.
No play meant more than what happened in the opening minute of the third quarter. Facing third-and-22 at his own 27, Hayes was blitzed and wheeled back to his own five-yard line before scrambling to the left sideline and throwing deep, finding Geloff behind the Bees’ coverage at midfield as Geloff ran the rest of the way for the touchdown.
Though B’ville cut the margin to 35-21 a few minutes later on Aquari Warner’s six-yard TD run, it would not score again, and Hayes was far from done, with a 41-yard completion to pride setting up a 45-yard scoring pass to Shy’rel Broadwater.
When Hayes, taking a hard hit early in the fourth quarter, found Merluzzi in the end zone from 34 yards out early in the fourth quarter, it all but sealed C-NS’s long-awaited championship moment.
B’ville finished at 8-2, its only two blemishes coming at the Northstars’ expense. But it was still a memorable season that included head coach Carl Sanfilippo’s 200th victory with the team and two playoff wins over Fayetteville-Manlius and Liverpool.
