To go from years of sitting far outside the circle of top area Class AA football teams to having a Section III playoff game on its home field is quite a leap for the West Genesee football team.
Yet the Wildcats have earned every bit of it, especially the victory that sealed its second-place position behind Cicero-North Syracuse in the Class AA-2 division.
WG ventured to Fayetteville-Manlius Friday night and, despite trailing three different times, persevered and, with well-timed big plays on both sides at critical moments, defeated the Hornets 35-24.
With that win, the Wildcats moved to 5-1 overall, and 3-1 in league play. Regardless of the result of next Friday’s regular-season finale against Rome Free Academy, WG is assured of no worse than a second-place league finish, and because it beat F-M head-to-head, it has the tiebreaker.
What was most encouraging to Wildcats partisans was the way it responded after Mitchell Seabury’s 15-yard touchdown run in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter gave the Hornets a 24-21 lead.
With the ball on its own 48-yard line, WG executed a perfect call. F-M blitzed, but Tyler Cook beat it with a screen pass to Exavier Brumfield, who went down the right sideline, cut back and made it all the way to the end zone for the go-ahead score.
Then it was the Wildcats’ defense making the key stop, halting an F-M drive inside its own 20 with five minutes left. It was the third time in this game the Hornets had a scoring opportunity thwarted deep in WG territory.
Not sitting on its 28-24 lead, the Wildcats quickly moved downfield, aided by a series of Hornets penalties. When Brumfield scored on a seven-yard sweep with 2:16 to play, WG put the game away.
Up until the final minutes, the entire game swung back and forth, with six lead changes to entertain a large crowd gathered for F-M’s Homecoming festivities and its Hall of Fame inductions.
From the outset, Cook was sharp, looking for a variety of receivers, including Chandler McAvan, who had key catches on WG’s opening drive, including a five-yard TD connection that gave the Wildcats a 7-0 lead.
F-M roared back, claiming a 10-7 lead, but its missed early chances kept it from grabbing a larger advantage, and the Wildcats would ultimately benefit from those clutch stops by its defense.
With less than a minute left in the half, Brian Felix intercepted Owen Neuman near midfield. One play later, Cook avoided the pass rush, then scrambled around until he found Brad May on the sidelines, May then going 43 yards deep into Hornets territory.
That gave the Wildcats just enough time to have Cook, from the F-M 12, find John Benson in the end zone with just three seconds to play.
Unfazed by WG taking a 14-10 lead at the break, the Hornets took the second-half kickoff and used its ground game to chew up yards until Tim Shaw scored from one yard out.
Within a minute, the Wildcats went back in front 21-17, moving to F-M’s 41 before Esisas Brumfield took a reverse, ran left, picked up a pair of crunching blocks and tore down the sideline to the end zone.
The lead nearly got bigger, but Riley Small, who made all five extra-point attempts on this night, just missed on an 29-yard field goal late in the third quarter. F-M took the ball and drove to Seabury’s go-ahead TD.
However, it was the Wildcats, controlling the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, taking charge late. Cook’s precise passing (he was 14-for-22 for 278 yards) was augmented by Exavier Brumfield’s tough running, as he shook off an early-game fumble to make crucial gains down the stretch, finishing with 135 yards on 17 carries.
