CICERO – Sixteen months may have passed. Some tremendous players may have moved on. The games might be taking place in the chill of late winter instead of the warmth of late summer.
But the Cicero-North Syracuse football team remains the standard by which all others in Central New York wants to reach – and no one might reach them in this abbreviated, long-delayed season.
If anyone doubted this notion, they only had to watch the Northstars’ 35-0 victory over Baldwinsville Friday night at Bragman Stadium where, in all phases of the game, C-NS proved too much for the Bees.
Five of the first six possessions for the Northstars resulted in touchdowns, scored by four different players. C-NS’s run and pass games mixed well and, defensively, it only allowed a handful of first downs as B’ville never got close to a scoring threat.
Returning quarterback J.J. Razmovsvki from the 2019 side that won a third consecutive Section III and regional Class AA championship, C-NS found a quick replacement for Mike Washington, who graduated early and is already at the University at Buffalo.
Jamar Ballard Jr., a 6-foot, 220-pound Christian Brothers Academy transfer, picked up big chunks of yardage on C-NS’s opening drive, which led to Razmovski finding Joe Penizotto in the end zone from 10 yards out before the game was three minutes old.
A second Northstars possession resulted in another TD as Ballard’s 23-yard run set up Razmovski, from the Bees’ three-yard line, finding Mason Ellis on a swing pass as Ellis took it home.
Razmovski found a wide-open Matt Klamm on a 44-yard scoring strike on the first play of the second quarter and added a fourth TD pass less than a minute before halftime, this time going deep from the Bees’ 25 to find Ellis in the left corner.
Off a B’ville fumble early in the third quarter than Vincent Pisa recovered, the Northstars got its fifth TD of the night when it drove to the Bees’ eight, from where La’Quan Lemon scored.
Only the fact that most of the starters exited the game midway through the third period did it calm down, but the C-NS defense still blanketed the Bees to preserve the shutout.
B’ville’s next game would be against Liverpool, who was quite ready to hit the field for the first time since the devastating defeat to C-NS in the 2019 sectional Class AA semifinal.
Hosting Nottingham at LHS Stadium on Saturday afternoon, the Warriors did not just match the Northstars in finding the win column, it also got a shutout, taking over late on the way to blanking the Bulldogs 26-0.
For most of the first half, the two sides struggled to move the ball. Thus, Liverpool’s lone scoring drive had more meaning as it reached Nottingham’s 11-yard line before Urijah Matthews found the end zone.
Only in the third quarter did the Warriors start to pick up large chunks of yardage. Such a change led to Malachi Upshur’s three-yard TD run and quarterback Brendan Mancuso dashing 36 yards to another score.
Jahmir Boutwell rounded it out by scoring on a 10-yard run in the final period as Upshur led a balanced ground attack with 61 yards on eight carries. Jeremy Valerio added 51 yards on seven carries.
As Liverpool meets B’ville next Friday night, C-NS takes on Henninger. Kickoff for both games is at 6 p.m.
