CENTRAL NEW YORK – Two weeks, and two victories in vastly different circumstances for the Solvay football team.
Playing Friday night at the JMA Dome, the Bearcats did not need any late comeback, as it did in the Sept. 8 opener against Little Falls, instead steadily getting away from Holland Patent to prevail 35-14.
The first half produced plenty of ups and downs, Solvay racing to a 14-0 lead helped by Jeff Sharpe’s interception return for a touchdown and the Golden Knights storming back to tie it, 14-14.
Then Jaysin Bliss made the game’s biggest play. With the Bearcats pinned at its own six-yard line, Bliss took a handoff and sped through the HP defenders 94 yards to the other end zone.
It proved to be the winning points, Solvay’s defense blanking HP in the second half and clinching it in the fourth quarter when Sharpe caught a 15-yard scoring pass from Jakob Frost.
Bliss again topped the 200-yard mark, getting 228 yards on 24 carries and netting 12 tackles on defense as Josh Komar amassed 17 tackles. Luis Mojica and Jaedyn Godbolt had 10 tackles apiece.
All the Bearcats were playing for a fallen teammate as, late in the first half, senior captain Luke Butler left the game with an injury after spending several minutes on the Dome turf.
Solvay was one of four local teams who would go to the Dome on Friday and Saturday, and the teams would go 2-2, Westhill getting the other victory on Saturday when it outscored Carthage 47-35.
The Warriors jumped out to a 21-0 lead, only to have the Comets fight back and, helped by three TD runs from Zac Stevens (65, 70 and 27 yards), tied it 28-28 early in the fourth quarter.
Elijah Welch would not let Westhill lose, though. Having already scored on a 20-yard run, he went 73 yards for another TD to put the Warriors ahead for good and added a five-yard scoring run and 32-yard scoring pass to Collin White in the closing minutes.
Later that day, West Genesee met Section IV’s Vestal and lost, 19-7, the Wildcats unable to score in the second half after netting its lone points on defense in the second quarter thanks to Elijah Apps’ 61-yard fumble return for a TD.
Two local teams with 1-1 records met last Friday at Hyatt Stadium and Skaneateles got the best of Jordan-Elbridge, the Lakers defeating the Eagles 28-14.
J-E was kept off the board until the fourth quarter, by which point Skaneateles led 28-0, twice scoring in the first half on Dom Caraccio’s eight-yard run and Joe Delmonico’s 41-yard pass to Brady Ellis.
The Lakers would add a pair of TD runs by Torin Bennett in the third quarter, one of them 21 yards. Kuchuan Gorman led J-E with 10 tackles on defense and a fourth-quarter scoring run.
Of all the teams in Section III Class C football, Marcellus had the latest start. Not until Sept. 9 did the Mustangs make its debut under first-year head coach Cole Blossey.
That came at Holland Patent, where the Mustangs lost 34-14 to the Golden Knights, shut out until the fourth quarter when Dakota Wilson threw TD passes of 12 yards to Damyn LaClair and 15 yards to Mitch Donegan.
When the Mustangs went to the Dome Friday to face defending sectional Class C champion General Brown, it was on the other end of a first-half scoring blitz by the Lions that led to a 62-35 defeat.
Fired up after a season-opening home loss to Cazenovia, GB struck for seven touchdowns in the first half on the way to a 50-14 advantage, with Ryan Chamberlain catching 63 and 59-yard scoring passes from Aiden McManaman.
Marcellus did find some success, too, LeClair catching a 51-yard TD pass from Lawrence and Donegan a 65-yard strike from Wilson. Then Donegan scored twice on long plays in the fourth quarter – a 69-yard pass from Wilson and a 75-yard kickoff return.
Bishop Ludden took on unbaten Lowville last Friday and lost, 38-29, surrendering a 14-6 halftime lead when the Red Raiders scored three times in the third quarter in between X’Zavion Streiff’s 56-yard scoring pass to Tom Cervantes.
Cervantes and Jahbari Clarke would each score twice, Streiff throwing 36 passes and completing 20 of them for 255 yards, but the Gaelic Knights run over by Lowville’s Sean Kelly, who carried it 43 times for 319 yards.
