Joe Sindoni was spot-on when he described the Skaneateles football team that he coached as a special, historic group that raised the program’s standards and set a new bar for future teams to follow.
These Lakers won 17 games in a row stretched out over two seasons, claimed a state Class C championship in 2017 and got within range of another state title in Class B a year later.
Stopping them, as it turned out, required something historic and special – which is what Batavia running back Ray Leach delivered Saturday night as the Blue Devils outscored Skaneateles 54-49 in the state Class B seminal at Union-Endicott High School.
Carrying the ball 50 times, Leach picked up 474 yards, breaking his own record for yards in a state tournament game, and tying his own state mark by scoring all eight of Batavia’s touchdowns.
Skaneateles was back on the same Ty Cobb Stadium turf where, one year earlier, it won a wild 65-56 decision over Cleveland Hill in the Class C state semifinals. And it trended in that direction again during the first half, when neither side could stop the other.
In Batavia’s case, that meant giving the ball almost exclusively to Leach. A week earlier, he had gained 412 yards and scored eight times as the Blue Devils beat Cheektowaga in the regional finals.
Here, Leach gashed the Lakers for 253 yards on 24 carries before halftime, and found the end zone four times as each of those TD’s put Batavia in front.
They were needed, because Skaneateles was just as effective with a more balanced attack, putting together three scoring drives of its own.
Areh Boni scored the first Lakers TD on a 23-yard run with 7:22 left in the first quarter. Then, after Batavia went up 14-7, Sknaeateles marched 81 yards on 15 plays, covering nearly six minutes before Pat Hackler scored from five yards out.
A six-yard TD run by Hackler late in the second quarter was answered again by the Blue Devils, who gained 56 of his team’s 61 yards on yet another scoring drive, his one-yard TD plunge sending Batavia to halftime with a 28-21 edge.
Then the Lakers’ deficit grew when Andrew Francis intercepted Hackler on the first play of the third quarter, which Batavia turned into points when quarterback Ethan Biscaro scrambled 32 yards, and Leach ran 45 yards on the next play to set up his fifth TD from five yards out.
Absent many big plays so far, Skaneateles got one when Nate Wellington returned the ensuing kickoff 63 yards, setting up Hackler’s first TD pass of the night, a 17-yard strike to Nick Wamp.
But when Leach scored a sixth time on a two-yard run in the last minute of the period and then intercepted Hackler on another deep pass attempt seconds later, it put the Lakers in the same scenario if faced against Chenango Forks, trailing by two scores with less than a quarter to play.
“A lot of teams would have quit,” said Sindoni. “But our team never stopped playing. It’s a testament to their great character.”
Hackler threw 44 yards to Wamp to set up a two-yard scoring pass to Will McGlynn with 7:56 left, which made it 42-35, and it appeared Skaneateles recovered an onside kick seconds later, but officials ruled that it was touched by a Lakers player just before the 10 yards required to make it legal.
So Batavia had it back, and that meant more of Leach, who kept adding to his totals, including a 16-yard TD run with 5:22 to play. Leach scored an eighth time from 47 yards out after the Lakers cut the margin to 48-42 on Hackler’s 14-yard TD pass to Wamp.
Yet it still wasn’t done. Again a quick Lakers drive found the end zone, Hackler scoring on a four-yard scramble with 2:19 left, and Skaneateles still in possession of all of its time-outs even after another onside kick attempt did not work.
As the Blue Devils had done all game long, the ball went to Leach, who with three runs gained a first down, allowing Batavia to run out the clock and advance to the state final at the Carrier Dome next Saturday against Glens Falls.
Sindoni said that, whenever this season ended, it would hurt because he wouldn’t get the chance to coach the likes of Hackler, Wellington, Boni, McGlynn, Luke Viggiano, John Danforth, Jack Carlile, Jimmy Liberatore, Josh McIntyre, Nate Squires and others whose great run on the Lakers’ gridiron has now ended.
