CENTRAL NEW YORK – In three separate locations Friday night, a trio of area high school football teams entered the fray of the Section III Class C playoffs, hoping to at least survive until the semifinal round – but none of them did so.
Skaneateles entered with momentum after two lopsided wins to close the regular season, but at General Brown the Lakers ran into a ferocious Lions squad and saw its reign as sectional champions end with a 41-21 defeat.
This was a game GB had waited nearly a year to play, having lost 35-14 to Skaneateles in the 2021 sectional final at the JMA Wireless Dome.
Revived since the return of Grayson Brunelle to the lineup, the Lakers grabbed an early lead when Patrick Herr stepped in front of a Lions pass and returned it 40 yards for a touchdown.
However, the Lakers were held without an offensive score the entire first half, GB chewing up yards and time with its ground game and eventually finding the end zone twice on short runs by Sheamus Devine and Kaleb Natali.
Trailing 14-7 at halftime, Skaneateles pulled back even in the third quarter when Herr, from near midfield, found Nate Shattuck on a 48-yard scoring pass and Cade Bourcy added the extra point.
GB stuck with its ground attack, though, and when Gabe Malcolm found the end zone from 16 yards out, it gave the Lions a lead it would not relinquish.
Twice in the fourth quarter, Natali scored, on runs of four and 15 yards, and though Herr threw a nine-yard TD pass to Brunelle, Natali returned to go 13 yards for his fourth TD in the closing minutes.
Mostly, the Lions’ defense shut down Brunelle on the ground, holding him to 16 yards on six carries. Herr finished 14-for-25 through the air for 114 yards.
Bishop Ludden was the only one of the three sides playing at home, but even that meant a tough assignment against 5-2 Holland Patent, who would rally to eliminate the Gaelic Knights 18-14.
At no. 20 in last week’s state rankings, Ludden would find itself in a defensive struggle with the Golden Knights throughout the first half, neither offense finding the end zone.
The only points came when Eric Phillips took an HP punt at his own 30 and, picking up blocks, dashed 70 yards for a TD, which held up as the Gaelic Knights led 7-0 at the break.
Early in the third quarter, though, the Golden Knights turned the game around when a Ludden trick play backfired, the lateral picked off by Jordan Koening and returned for a TD as Jon Zylinsky added a go-ahead two-point conversion.
Even bigger was Koenig’s 79-yard TD dash that, with Zylinsky again running in for two, made it 16-7, which allowed HP to withstand Jahbari Clarke’s 21-yard scoring run with 7:51 to play.
Trailing 16-14, Ludden found itself backed up in the game’s final minute, and when Devyn Priz got a safety, the Golden Knights had secured a trip to the sectional semifinals.
Marcellus had backed into the sectional playoffs depsite losing its last three regular-season games and, on Friday, went all the way to Boonville to face state no. 4-ranked Adirondack.
Here, the Mustangs put up plenty of points, but lost, 60-31, to the Wildcats, who ran wild during a 32-point first quarter and led 44-13 going into halftime.
Forced to pass a lot, the Mustangs saw Pat Louer complete 18 of 35 passes for 332 yards. Ryder Donahue caught eight of those passes for 112 yards as Jake Kermes gained 70 yards on the ground and scored three TD’s.
Before all this happened, 5-3 Solvay, who missed the sectional playoffs despite its winning record, took out that anger last Wednesday on Southern Hills as Jaysin Bliss ran wild in a 44-24 victory over the Thunder.
Bliss ran for a career-best 278 yards on 15 carries, scoring on runs of 12 and 48 yards in the first quarter as that, along with Jordan Dippold’s 18-yard TD run, negated a pair of Southern Hills scores.
Three more scores followed for the Bearcats in the second period, Bliss scoring one of them on a 54-yard dash in between Luis Mujica’s 17-yard TD pass to Dippold and a two-yard plunge from Steve Bagozzi. Christian Kaminski added a third-quarter field goal.
