Whatever the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse football teams had in mind for their respective regular-season finales, it sure did not involve getting kept off the scoreboard.
The Warriors saw its dreams of an undefeated regular season dashed at Corning in a 28-0 defeat to the Hawks, while the Northstars’ hopes of getting a share of the Class AA-2 regular-season title dissolved in a flurry of fumbles in a 32-0 loss to Utica Proctor at Bragman Stadium.
In particular, the C-NS defeat hurt because, instead of a top Section III playoff seed, the Northstars find itself locked into the same half of the bracket as Liverpool, the two lined up to meet in the semifinals if both win their respective first-round games next weekend.
Having won three games in a row, C-NS now went after a Proctor team that, like Liverpool, was 6-0 going into the week and holding the no. 17 state ranking. But it only took one play from scrimmage for the Raiders to take charge.
J.J. Razmovski dropped the first snap he took from scrimmage, and Proctor’s Isiah Czarnecki recovered at the Northstars’ 29-yard line. With a short field, the Raiders drove to the one, where Taesean Cooper scored.
Even more damaging was Mike Washington’s fumble that thwarted a C-NS drive inside the Proctor 15 later in the first quarter, and the Northstars fumbled again inside Raiders territory in the second period.
Ultimately, all of those giveaways helped Proctor pull away. On fourth-and-goal at the Northstars’ 10 early in the second quarter, quarterback Brandon Peterson rolled out and threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Saleh Eltayeb, and the Raiders added the two-point conversion.
Off of the third C-NS turnover, the Raiders drove to the Northstars’ eight, and Peterson scrambled to the end zone just 1.8 seconds before halftime, and it was now 20-0.
Any dreams of a Northstars comeback got dashed in the third quarter. Proctor took the kickoff and went 72 yards in 11 plays, all runs, as Cooper, who finished with 131 yards, did much of the work, including the final yards for a TD.
Twice more, C-NS fumbled, with one of those turnovers leading to Proctor’s final points when Peterson scored on a one-yard sneak.
As the Northstars aim to work on hanging on to the ball next week, Liverpool simply wants to regain the confident swagger that produced six consecutive victories prior to its trip to face 5-1 Corning.
The Hawks were steady and relentless, scoring once in each quarter against the stingy Warriors defense. Justin Rodriguez’s 15-yard TD run in the first quarter put Corning ahead, and Max Freeman scored on a one-yard sneak to double the margin before halftime.
