Andrew Osier didn’t have to do much – just kick a ball through the uprights at a distance similar to the extra points he had converted so many times throughout the fall.
Only in this instance, a game, a season and the dream of a state championship for the Cicero-North Syracuse football team hung in the balance.
One second showed on the clock in Saturday night’s Class AA regional final at Vestal High School. The Northstars had squandered a 13-point lead to Section IV champion Corning, and had seen a clutch drive stall just short of the Hawks’ goal line.
For a long while, Osier waited as Corning spent a time-out, attempting to unnerve him. Then Osier lined up, watched as the snap arrived and then calmly kicked it – straight and true.
Within moments, the entire C-NS roster was on the field, celebrating a 24-22 victory that continued a remarkable run of dramatic post-season wins and allows the Northstars to play on home turf at Bragman Stadium next weekend for the state semifinals against Rochester McQuaid.
Given the big comebacks that C-NS made to defeat Liverpool and Utica Proctor to earn its third consecutive Section III title, it only figured that this game would have its own rally – only from the other side.
The Northstars started out as if no dramatics would be required. Farouk Ibrahim’s 60-yard return on the opening kickoff set up an immediate touchdown that Mike Washington scored on a 15-yard run less than two minutes into the game.
After Corning went up 8-7 on Mike Freeman’s 10-yard TD run and a two-point conversion, the Northstars quickly responded, driving to the Hawks’ five before quarterback J.J. Razmovski scrambled into the end zone.
In the last minute of the first quarter, C-NS had the ball at midfield. Going deep, Razmovski found Adron Pafford, and the 50-yard touchdown, plus Osier’s third consecutive successful extra point, had the Northstars enjoying a 21-8 lead.
But that was the last time C-NS would find the end zone, a tribute to a Corning defense that clamped down throughout the game’s middle stages, but also a reflection of mistakes that nearly derailed the Northstars.
Recovering a Hawks fumble inside the Corning five right before halftime, C-NS could not capitalize, Razmovski intercepted in the end zone by Justin Rodriquez.
Then, after Corning cut the deficit to 21-14 on Ja’Ovian Fisher’s one-yard TD run in the third quarter, the Northstars drove inside the Hawks’ 15, and Razmovski ran for a second TD – only to have it called back on a holding penalty.
Those errors loomed larger when Fisher scored from 17 yards out with 9:40 to play and Corning gambled, going for two and the lead – and got it to move in front 22-21.
Now needing to put a drive together, C-NS did so in the closing minutes. By far, the biggest play came on the Corning 39 where, facing third-down-and-20, Razmovski found Pafford in double coverage for a 22-yard gain.
Working down the rest of the clock, the Northstars would have preferred to get a touchdown and not put it all on Osier -but when it had to, the senior delivered the biggest kick of his high school career.
And now it’s C-NS in the same state semifinal round where Lancaster (in 2017) and Rochester Aquinas (in 2018) stopped them. Here, McQuaid (who rallied late to beat Lancaster 32-28 in its regional final) provides the opposition, and either the Northstars or Knights will get to the Dome Dec. 1 for a state championship game against New Rochelle or Shenendehowa.
