CENTRAL NEW YORK – The last time the Christian Brothers Academy football team was in the JMA Wireless Dome it was celebrating a perfect season capped off by a state Class AA championship.
Now it’s back to the Dome for the Brothers, pursuing another Section III title next Friday night against Cicero-North Syracuse after rolling past Utica Proctor 51-13 in Friday’s semifinal at Alibrandi Stadium to run its two-season win streak to 21 in a row.
This was a Raiders side who went 2-6 in the regular season and lost 68-12 to CBA the first time these two teams met Sept. 28, but had turned things around to win its sectional playoff opener at West Genesee 38-20.
CBA was a different matter, though, as the Brothers again dominated on both sides of the ball building a 45-0 lead through three quarters, the Raiders’ lone points coming against reserves in the final period.
It was 20-0 by the end of the opening period, including the season’s longest play as, from his own 12-yard line, Brayden Smith threw deep and found Darien Williams, who went the rest of the way 88 yards for the touchdown.
Smith had already scored on a 16-yard scramble after Isaiah Coleman’s three-yard TD run. Then Smith again converted on a five-yard dash after Quentin Lewis went 30 yards to the end zone, extending the margin to 33-0 at halftime.
Lewis tacked on a second TD from 24 yards out in the third quarter, and the Brothers’ depth showed itself again when Khalan Reese scored on runs of 30 and 62 yards late. In its nine wins this season the Brothers have outscored opponents a combined 472-96.
And the sectional final will offer a rematch of 2023 with Cicero-North Syracuse, who rode a dominant ground game to a 33-13 semifinal win over Liverpool avenging a Sept. 20 defeat to the Warriors.
Back on Thursday night, Jamesville-DeWitt had a chance at the sectional B-2 championship, only to get turned back by South Jefferson in a 49-22 defeat.
The two teams traded early touchdowns, but the Spartans got away in the game’s middle stages, netting 35 unanswered points on the Red Rams in the second and third quarters.
Gavin Warner scored all five TD’s for South Jefferson in that stretch, part of a night where he gained 207 yards on 25 carries. He was complemented by quarterback Chase Bickel completing 14 of 15 passes for 131 yards and a score.
J-D only managed 86 rushing yards, but had Anthony Guidone go 14-for-27 through the air for 195 yards and a trio of TD passes, two of them to Carson Kim. Defensively, Carter Phaneuf amassed 16 tackles, with Braeden Hennessy adding 12 tackles. Kim and Kevin Vigneault had 10 tackles apiece as Bryce Dadey had eight tackles and Bryce Wheeler seven tackles.
All told, the defeat to South Jefferson could not spoil the Rams’ best season since 2012 as it finished at 6-4 overall.
Bishop Grimes had a chance to join CBA at the Dome if it could pull off an upset against undefeated Frankfort-Schuyler in last Friday’s eight-man football sectional semifinal.
But the Maroon Knights proved too much, beating the Cobras 50-24 largely on the basis of how the game started.
Before Grimes could seven settle down, F-S had scored four times in the first quarter and bolted to a 28-0 lead. All the Cobras got before halftime was Avery Pankow’s 10-yard TD pass to Dario Nicotra and an Andrew Wait two-point run.
The margin grew to 50-8 by the end of third quarter as the Cobras did get a pair of late touchdowns against the Maroon Knights’ reserves, one a five-yard scoring pass from Pankow to Nicotra and the other a 52-yard run from Ryken Heffron.
