ONONDAGA COUNTY – Home or away, normal or short rest, for the Skaneateles football the circumstances do not seem to matter.
Through three games, the Lakers have not just defeated its opposition, it hasn’t even let them get on the scoreboard, ample reason why it holds the no. 2 state Class C ranking.
Canastota proved the latest casualty of this Skaneateles surge Friday night at Hyatt Stadium, with the hosts scoring 21 points in each of the first two quarters and going on to rout the Raiders 55-0.
With shutouts over Clinton (50-0) and Onondaga (54-0) already in the books, the Lakers again demonstrated the multiple ways it could find the end zone at Canastota’s expense.
Grayson Brunelle got it going with a 47-yard scoring dash early in the first quarter. Minutes later, it was James Musso throwing a 30-yard touchdown pass to Patrick Herr, with Brunelle returning to make it 21-0 by scoring from six yards out before the period ended.
That was just a warmup, though, for Musso’s spectacular second quarter.
Not content with throwing a 53-yard TD pass to Cody Nesbitt, Musso, from his own 21-yard line, went deep and found Nesbitt again for a 79-yard scoring strike that, with Ashton Bennett’s extra point, made it 35-0.
But the real exclamation point was when the Lakers, pinned in the shadow of its own goal line, saw a pass from Musso to Brunelle turn into a 98-yard dash to the other end zone.
Having thrown for 313 yards on just seven completions (an average of nearly 42 yards per completion), Musso would run for 60 yards on five carries plus a third-quarter TD. Brunelle ran for 132 yards on 12 carries as Nesbitt accumulated 159 receiving yards on just three completions.
Competition will get tougher for Skaneateles in October, including Bishop Ludden, who was 2-0 going into this weekend but saw its game against 2-0 Southern Hills get postponed. Skaneateles is supposed to face the Storm next weekend before its big Oct. 9 trip to Cazenovia.
On the other end of the spectrum, Solvay, still in search of its first win of 2021, could not get it against visiting Dolgeville, who prevailed 36-7 Friday at Al Merola Field.
Dolgeville, the school with more Section III titles than any other program, put up 28 unanswered points on the Bearcats in the first half.
Greg Gonyea scored on a 41-yard run in the first quarter and 13-yard run in the second quarter, with Jared Bilinski’s pair of short TD plunges adding to the Blue Devils’ margin.
Connor Morse scored from two yards out in the third period, and Solvay again was held off the scoreboard until a fourth-quarter drive where Jordan Dippold threw a 28-yard TD pass to Jeff Sharpe.
