With plenty of new faces on the field, the Baldwinsville football team was not allowed the luxury of easing into the 2018 season.
Corcoran, armed with a strong returning cast from a side that went 7-2 a year ago, arrived at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium on Aug. 31 and, after a mid-game Bees comeback, took over in the late stages, handing B’ville a 24-14 defeat.
Through the years, a consistent thread in the Bees program was that, no matter how many players graduated, the strength of the system would assure continuity and a high performance level.
This season would arduously test those standards, given the quality of players that departed from the 2017 side that reached the sectional Class AA final. And it took a while for the Bees to find some form against Corcoran.
By the second quarter, B’ville trailed 14-0, having seen the Cougars strike on special teams in the opening period with JoJo Williams’ 65-yard punt return for a touchdown and then score again on Dewayne Young’s one-yard plunge.
Yet in the opening seconds of the second period, the Bees found itself on Corcoran’s 20, and quarterback Pat May scrambled from there to score his team’s first TD of the season.
Seconds later, the Cougars, backed up near its own end zone, fumbled the ball, and Mike Trangredi fell on it to score another touchdown. Garrett Selover, the Bees’ returning All-State kicker, made his second consecutive extra point to tie it, 14-14.
Settling down on defense in the middle stages, B’ville kept it 14-14 until the third quarter, when it was Corcoran’s turn to score points on defense, Khemron Robinson sacking May in the end zone for a go-ahead safety.
With many different chances to answer, the Bees could not do so, and Corcoran secured the win with 2:53 left when Cincear Torrence, who split quarterback duties with Young, scored on a 42-yard dash down the sideline.
The long-vaunted B’ville ground game never took off, held to just 47 yards as, for the game, the Cougars managed to limit the Bees to 90 total yards, or nearly as many as Cameron Fabian had on a 76-yard kick return.
Defensively, John Hernandez led the Bees with 12 tackles, five of them solo, while Luke Eberl’s 11 tackles included six solo stops. Mike Letiza had eight tackles and recovered two fumbles, while Tangredi got seven tackles to go with his fumble recovery TD.
B’ville will look to get into the win column next Friday at Nottingham, the Bulldogs having claimed its season opener when it edged past Rome Free Academy 13-12.
