ONONDAGA COUNTY – Even though a dominant and overwhelming opponent loomed, the West Genesee football team was quite glad to have the fourth seed in the Section III Class AA playoffs and another chance to play in front of a home crowd.
Yet the Wildcats could not take full advantage of this situation, seeing Utica Proctor pull away and beat them 38-20 in Friday’s sectional quarterfinal at Mike Messere Field.
These same teams met on this same turf four weeks earlier and WG had comfortably won 23-6. Here, though, the Raiders got off to a far better start and responded well to the Wildcats’ 20-point second-quarter surge.
In many ways, what happened in the first quarter proved impossible to overcome. Twice, Proctor found its way to the end zone, on short runs by Kamal Cisson-Ali and Jonathan Jackson, and each time the Raiders added a two-point conversion.
WG did turn it around in the short term, dominating the second quarter. Elijah Apps and Raul Colon both scored on short runs and, just before halftime, Jack Wade found Colon on a 38-yard touchdown pass.
Yet those would prove the Wildcats’ final points.
All through the second half Proctor’s defense contained WG while steadily producing on the other end, taking the lead for good on Wyatt Robinson’s 33-yard touchdown pass to Cisson-Ali.
Jonathan Jackson, who had 147 yards on 23 carries, scored early in the fourth quarter and Sisson-Ali added a third TD to clinch it as Robinson completed just four of nine passes, but they added up to 174 yards.
In a crossover game between two non-playoff teams on a warm Wednesday evening, a rivalry got renewed as Solvay went to Westhill and pulled out a 28-22 victory over the Warriors.
Both teams had touchdowns and two-point conversions in the opening period, but Solvay inched in front 14-8 in the second and then didn’t flinch when Elijah Welch scored twice on third-quarter runs along with several extra point.
Westhill entered the fourth quarter up 22-20, only to see the Bearcats put together a clutch scoring drive and find the end zone plus add two points, which the Warriors could not answer.
Xavier Hardy paced Solvay’s offense, amassing 201 yards on 22 carries and netting three of his team’s four TD’s. Dylan Mumford got the other score.
Davin Kaszubinski stood out on defense with 14 ½ tackles, Jaedyn Goldbolt adding 10 tackles. Hardy, Antwan Hicks and Jeremiah Benjamin had seven tackles apiece, Hicks added an interception and Dylan Mumford recovered a fumble.
In defeat, Westhill’s Jack Hayes ran 13 times for 164 yards, while Welch completed 11 of 18 passes for 104 yards.
