True, it required a lot of points and a lot of stress, but the Solvay football team is now the proud owner of an undefeated regular season – and a daunting assignment for the opening round of the Section III Class B playoffs.
The state Class B no. 9-ranked Bearcats’ perfect run through the Class B West division culminated Friday night at Al Merola Field, where it trailed for the first time all season, but stormed back and, with a big fourth quarter, pulled away to beat Homer 55-41.
And leads Solvay into the sectional tournament, where next Friday it meets long-time powerhouse Cazenovia, the fourth-place finisher in the B East division, the Lakers having won four of five games following an uncharacteristic 0-2 start.
With the top playoff seed already locked up, Solvay’s game with Homer centered around maintaining its unbeaten mark, though it was made more difficult by having top running back and linebacker Jaimen Bliss out of the lineup for the second week in a row.
Three different times in the first half, the Trojans went out in front 7-0, 14-7 and 21-14, moving at will against an undermanned Bearcats defense, only to have Solvay respond with four big plays.
Brock Bagozzi’s 53-yard touchdown pass to Justin Scott got the Bearcats on the board, with Blaine Franklin scoring on a 46-yard run late in the first quarter to tie it 14-14.
After the Trojans went back in front again, Bagozzi, from his own 20, again threw deep and again found Scott, the TD covering 80 yards. That, along with a Bagozzi’s 45-yard scoring pass to Russ Tarbell late in the half, gave Solvay its first lead, 28-21, where it stood at the break.
They traded scores once more in the third quarter, Bagozzi’s fourth TD pass of the night a seven-yard strike to Zach Bowen, but a rare missed conversion meant that the Bearcats entered the final period up 34-28, and now it was Homer tying it when Logan Peck scored from 23 yards out early in the final period.
It wasn’t until Bagozzi scrambled nine yards to the end zone a few minutes later that Solvay got the lead for good. Then, after Homer’s lone turnover, Franklin made it 48-34 on a four-yard TD run, and Bagozzi clinched it with another deep strike to Scott, this one covering 69 yards.
Meanwhile, up north, Marcellus pulled out a 34-28 victory over South Jefferson that improved the Mustangs’ record to 6-1 and assured itself a first-round playoff home game next Friday against Central Valley Academy.
This one went back and forth, too, with the Mustangs using first-half TD runs of two yards by Nick Kermes and eight yards by Sean Tierney to match Austin Mesler’s pair of scoring passes for the Spartans – 46 yards to Colden Montague, 21 yards to Jeff Messenger.
Tied 14-14 at intermission, state Class B no. 17-ranked Marcellus scored twice more in the third and fourth quarters, each of them on three-yard runs by Kermes, and once more South Jefferson matched them.
When Anthony Rasmussen scored on a one-yard plunge and the Spartans added a two-point conversion, it was 28-28, but in the final minute of regulation Tierney went through the air from near midfield, finding Jared Sammon for a 45-yard scoring pass that proved the game-winner.
It proved quite a successful night for all of the area’s Class B West teams in general, with Bishop Ludden, who just missed reaching the sectional playoffs, earning a 25-6 victory over Cortland.
Nazier Kinsey and Eric Phillips both scored on short TD runs in the first quarter, and Phillips converted again in the second period as the Gaelic Knights led the Purple Tigers 18-6 at halftime. Then Anthony Cervantes sealed it with a third-quarter 32-yard dash to the end zone.
And Westhill, who had absorbed five consecutive defeats since topping Homer in the Sept. 6 opener, finally broke that skid by defeating Institute of Technology Central 21-6 at Corcoran High School Stadium.
The Warriors scored the game’s first 21 points, Garvin Kinney throwing three touchdown passes – two to Demetri Asicoti, plus a 24-yard strike to Jack Mooney. Riley McNitt ran 22 times for 91 yards to pace Westhill’s ground attack.
