ONONDAGA COUNTY – Going into October, the Baldwinsville football team sat at the .500 mark, knowing its season could pivot on what happened when it visited Fayetteville-Manlius.
There, the Bees did plenty of good things, but big plays by the Hornets resulted in a 29-26 defeat and, with little time to really recover, B’ville was overwhelmed six days later by reigning state Class AA champion Christian Brothers Academy by a score of 49-7.
The F-M game was what really hurt, though, since the Hornets carried a 13-game skid which dated back to the 2022 season into the contest.
Potent throughout the first half, B’ville three times found the end zone and established a 20-16 lead, with one of those scores Cameron Morreale’s 42-yard touchdown pass to Chris Zellar.
On the first play of the second half, though, F-M’s Colin Clark took the kickoff and, heading up the middle, picked up all the blocks he needed to get to the end zone and give the Hornets a 22-20 lead.
Late in the period B’ville regained the Lead, moving to F-M four-yard-line before Brady Garcia plowed in, his lone TD on a night where he gained 107 yards on 11 carries.
Quickly answering, the Hornets moved to the goal line and, with Jack Hearn’s TD sneak, went in front for good, though plenty of time remained.
With one more chance thanks to a Gracon Rafkis punt return into Hornets territory, B’ville tried to force a big play – but Alexsander Madisso picked off Morreale, and F-m ran out the clock.
For the game, Morreale threw 17 passes, completing seven of them for 101 yards. Eddie Primrose picked up eight tackles to lead the defense, Tyler Pine adding five tackles. Rafkis and Aaron Holcomb had four tackles apiece and Mitch Burlingame recovered a fumble.
Now the Bees had to turn around and, on Thursday night at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium, welcome CBA, who was riding an 18-game win streak and was no. 4 in the state AA rankings.
A big first quarter pushed the Brothers in front 21-0, Darien Williams catching a pair of TD passes from Brayden Smith covering 20 and 10 yards after Austin Ariola scored on a seven-yard run.
It got to 35-0 by halftime as Quentin Lewis found the end zone twice on consecutive six-yard runs. Another TD followed to make it 42-0 before Garcia’s fourth-quarter TD run of 29 yards broke up the shutout.
CBA’s dominant defense held the Bees to 122 total yards, most of them from Garcia’s 75 rushing yards on 11 carries. Rafkis and Jordan White paced the defense with six tackles apiece as the Bees play once more at home this season this Friday against Utica Proctor for a 6:30 kickoff.
