From a trio of fumbles, two of them on muffed punts, to a handful of penalties, the Cazenovia football team did plenty to hand Friday night’s game to Chittenango and surrender neighborhood bragging rights.
Just in time, though, the Lakers snapped out of its poor play and, in the fourth quarter, took control with back-to-back scoring drives, pulling away to beat the Bears 31-13.
In doing so, Cazenovia once again secured the Class B East regular-season championship. The Lakers finished alone at 6-1, one game ahead of Vernon-Verona-Sherrill and Oneida after the Red Devils defeated the Indians 41-18.
It was a breakout night for Lakers tailback Ryan Romagnoli, who set a career mark with 221 yards on 23 carries, scoring three times.
All four spots atop the league were still up in the air heading into Friday’s action. Cazenovia and Chittenango both had plenty of momentum after the Lakers won at Oneida and the Bears had rallied past VVS the week before.
Twice in the game’s first nine minutes, the Lakers coughed up the ball, giving the Bears great scoring chances, but it could not convert on either of them.
In between those turnovers, Cazenovia seized a 6-0 lead, driving from its own 34-yard line to Chittenango’s 24 before Drew Johnson’s play-action fake and perfect throw over the middle found a wide-open Tony Heaney in the end zone.
That margin doubled early in the second quarter, the Lakers getting big gains from Heaney and James Pavelchak before Ryan Romagnoli took over, going the last 18 yards for the touchdown on an option run.
When the Lakers moved a third time to the end zone and Romagnoli scored from 17 yards out with 1:29 left in the half, Chittenango trailed 18-0 and was seeing things get away from them.
Keith Spurgeon changed the game’s course, though, with a 50-yard kick return that again set up a short field for the Bears. This time, though, it capitalized, Brian Lamaitis finding Nick Farr on a nine-yard TD pass 10.9 seconds before intermission.
It remained 18-7 through a scoreless third quarter, the Lakers’ defense making another big stop inside its own 10-yard line after it had muffed a second Bears punt.
But on the first play of the fourth quarter, from the Cazenovia 23, Chittenango pulled closer when Dakota Diable, on a halfback option pass, threw it to Spurgeon in the end zone.
More than any single play, that seemed to jolt the Lakers to life, for on its next possession it tore down the field on a series of option runs, most of them by Romagnoli, who went the last eight yards for his third TD of the night.
And right after the Lakers stopped the Bears on fourth down at the Chittenango 40, Cazenovia sealed it, Johnson throwing 27 yards to Chad Carges for his second TD pass.
The Lakers had 410 total yards, nearly double the Bears’ total of 210 as Johnson completed nine of 11 passes for 132 yards. Carges caught three of those passes for 63 yards.
Defensively, Dan Hammond had four solo tackles and four assists, with Shawn Szlamczynski adding three tackles and four assists. Vince Borio and Isaac Senehi had three tackles apiece as John Frega assisted on five tackles.
Next weekend, Cazenovia will face Homer, the fourth-place finisher in the B West division, in the opening round of the sectional playoffs (a rematch of the 2017 sectional final won by the Trojans), just as Chittenango travels to face unbeaten, state no. 2-ranked Skaneateles.
