CICERO – With a full array of young talent on hand, the Baldwinsville football team is going to treat its spring 2021 campaign as a growth opportunity where players learn and mature before what they hope is a return to normal competition in the fall.
The problem for the Bees was that its most difficult and daunting assignment came right at the outset and showed just how much work remains before championship dreams can start again.
Cicero-North Syracuse, winners of the last three Section III and regional Class AA titles, handled B’ville 35-0 in last Friday night’s opener at Bragman Stadium.
Rarely were the Bees able to move the ball against a fast, aggressive Northstars defense, while on the other side C-NS netted touchdowns on five of its first six possessions before its starters rested in the third quarter.
C-NS found a quick replacement for its best two-way player, 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 J.J. 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, finding Mason Ellis on a swing pass as Ellis dashed 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.
The Bees’ defense would fare better with several fourth-down stops against C-NS the rest of the night, but only once was able to move into Northstars territory.
A great deal of improvement tends to get made from the first game to the second, which B’ville hopes to be true this Friday when it hosts Liverpool at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium. Kickoff is at 6 p.m.
