Football Bees see Cicero-North Syracuse pull away

CICERO – While it’s true that the Baldwinsville football team has not climbed back to the top level of area Class AA football, at least it has made up a bit of ground on the program who dominated most of the recent history in the large-school ranks.

At Bragman Stadium in last Friday’s regular-season finale, the Bees played on even terms most of the night, but ultimately paid for a rough start which led to a 50-27 loss to the Northstars.

In its first year under new head coach Jim Ryan, C-NS had taken early defeats to Christian Brothers Academy and Liverpool, but entered this game having won four in a row almost entirely based on its strong ground attack.

B’ville immediately saw this up close. Three times in the first quarter the Northstars scored on touchdown runs, Anthony Johnson getting it going with a 59-yard dash and also finding the end zone from six yards out as Miy’Jon McDowell added a 20-yard touchdown run.

Down 21-0, the Bees would break through twice in the second quarter, including a 35-yard Luke Primrose TD pass to Aaron Holcomb, with another Johnson 12-yard score in between as the margin was 28-13 at the break.

Primrose’s second scoring pass to Holcomb, a 25-yard strike, early in the third quarter and a two-point conversion briefly brought B’ville within a score, yet C-NS would twice find the end zone to get away again.

TeiShawn Wade added a six-yard TD run in the fourth quarter, part of a ground attack where Brady Garcia managed 151 yards on 28 carries, complementing Primrose going 10-for-17 through the air for 185 yards. Holcomb had five catches for 111 yards.

Though Maxie Capers led the Bees’ defense with five tackles, C-NS gained 444 yards on the ground against them, Johnson amassing 232 yards on 18 carries and McDowell adding 129 yards on 11 carries as the pair combined for six touchdowns.

Now B’ville would prepare for the Section III Class AA playoffs, where it landed as the no. 7 seed and have to travel Friday to face no. 2 seed Liverpool at 6 p.m. The winner gets C-NS or Fayetteville-Manlius in the Nov. 8 semifinals.