CICERO – Here again sits the Cicero-North Syracuse football team two wins away from the program’s first-ever state championship. And it just might have the defense to break through and get it.

It was that defense that helped propel the Northstars to a 36-0 shutout of Section IV champion Corning in Saturday’s Class AA regional final at Bragman Stadium, with key stops and big plays setting up all of the points in a decisive first half.

“We came out from the start and executed the way we wanted to,” said senior lineman Roemellow Robinson.

“We were physical and ready to go,” said senior defensive back Farouk Ibrahim.

More than anything else, it was this defensive unit which assured that this regional game did not match the close, tense affairs of 2019 and 2021, when the Northstars had to go to the wire to put away the Hawks.

Twice in the first quarter, Corning, with its unique double-wing offense featuring all kinds of misdirection, drove toward midfield and went for it on fourth down – and twice were stopped, once with a defensive stand and again with the breakup of a blocked punt.

C-NS head coach Dave Kline credited the line, led by Robinson, Cody Heller, Dan Garcia, Ty Daughton and Terrell Wright, helped at linebacker by Jayceon McGrew, LaQuan Lemon and Evan Gallagher, with controlling the line of scrimmage and reacting well to whatever the Hawks threw at them.

Ibrahim, aside from his work at defensive back, also scored the game’s first touchdown on a 20-yard run up the middle. The second Corning fourth-down stop led to another score when, with a short field, C-NS drove to the one, where Jaxon Razmovski sneaked in for the TD and then ran in a botched extra point snap for two points.

A three-play sequence midway through the second quarter made it 22-0. Mason Mingle intercepted a rare Hawks pass. Lemon then ran 52 yards deep into Corning territory before Razmovski scrambled 18 yards for the TD.

Razmovski made two big plays early in the third quarter, scrambling 31 yards on third-and-28 before a 41-yard catch-and-run to Tristan Johnson set up Lemon to score from two yards out.

Nate Williams caught a 30-yard TD pass from Razmovski in the fourth quarter as C-NS, with its fifth straight regional title in hand, will now try to do what it couldn’t the previous four times – go further.

Monday night’s game between Buffalo Bennett and Rochester McQuaid (pushed back two days by the massive snowstorm that hit Buffalo) will determine who plays the Northstars in the state semifinals at Union-Endicott.