Salamanca’s state title dreams dashed

By SPENCER BATES, Sports Editor

SYRACUSE — In its search for the program’s first New York State title, the Salamanca football team ended up falling just eight yards short of a potential walk-off win.

Between the third and fourth quarters of their New York State Class C Final, the Warriors had conceded 19 straight points to Section 2 champion Schuylerville. But a possible all-important 20th point was left off the board following a heroic diving block from Cory Holleran to stop an extra-point.

With just over a minute left and staring at a six-point deficit, Salamanca marched from its own 44-yard line and advanced all the way inside the Horses’ 10.

But with just five seconds left to play, a miscue on the go-to route in their final play of the game led to the Warriors falling by a score of 26-20, suffering their first loss to end the season 13-1. Quarterback Maddox Isaac scrambled to buy time, rolling right to left but was eventually caught for the game-ending sack.

“(I’m) trying to hold it together for a group of guys in there that are crushed,” Salamanca coach Chad Bartoszek said. “That was a heck of a football game, and it’s hard for them to wrap their brains around that right now, because it’s just the suddenness of an end of a season at the state finals at the eight-yard line. It’s crushing, that’s the only word.”

However, there was a silver lining to be found.

“The message in there is that ‘you just learned a heck of a lot about life,’” Bartoszek said. “Some things aren’t going to go the way you want them to go. But if you work hard, believe in yourselves, you can accomplish great things.”

Some of those great things that manifested on this day were the performances of the Warriors’ duo of Isaac and Xavier Peters.

Isaac, while not reaching his usual level of success in the run game — he rushed 12 times for just 21 yards — found his stride in the passing game. Isaac finished 12-for-19 through the air with one touchdown pass apiece to Holleran and Zach Trietley. Holleran’s score came from six yards out while Trietley found the endzone on a screen pass catch-and-run for eight yards.

Peters, on the flipside, was able to find some gaps in the Horses’ defense and racked up 117 yards with his legs. He scored the third and final Salamanca touchdown on the day with a 28-yard burst.

However, not all of its rushes, let alone overall plays, were as successful as Peters’ rushing score. In fact, the Warriors had the game just about in their hands, receiving a kickoff following Holleran’s blocked PAT with just about five minutes left. But one mental lapse on a surprise onside kick that was recovered by the Horses made things much more difficult.

According to Bartoszek, there are two ways one could look at this game. One being that it came down to just one missed play. The second is that it was more of a result of the slow grind that came before.

“Those battles in between the trenches were tough; they were physical,” Bartoszek said. “And we were up (to it). I mean, there was a lot of short gains, a lot of short yardage, a lot of spaces that we thought maybe we could create. I give them a ton of credit. How they hung in there and they kept battling.”

Trietley led Salamanca on the defensive end with six overall tackles. Kruz Coustenis (five), Holleran (four), Evan Spruce Jr. (four) and Avery Brown (four) each racked up several tackles as well.

The pace of play was certainly one that Salamanca did not have an abundance of experience with. But for a team that has thrived off the quick-strike over the course of the season, Bartoszek credited his players for making the adjustment, even if it meant he will live to rethink some choices he made as a play-caller earlier in the game.

“That’s part of the offensive play-caller’s nightmare, that there was probably some shots we should have taken earlier,” Bartoszek said. “We were able to get down the field late there and maybe we should have went to a few of those (plays) early on. It just always felt like (Xavier) and Maddox were, like, one tackle away from busting a long run … and it just felt like that the whole game. The way that things were going, we saw some things and kind of stuck with it.”

Despite the loss, the Warriors were able to reach the last possible game of the season with its only negative mark over the course of it being its loss to Schuylerville. And although the program’s dream of bringing home its first state title will have to wait at least another year, Bartoszek is proud of what his team was able to accomplish.

“I have appreciation for what took place there, and I do appreciate that I got to be with these guys one more time,” Bartoszek said. “Our staff put their lives to the side for starting in June. … The hard part is the ‘what if,’ and as the years go by, you don’t get a ton of these opportunities. Sometimes you just got to capture it, and we just fell short.”

AT SYRACUSE

Salamanca 6 6 8 0 — 20

Schuylerville 7 0 7 12 — 26

First Quarter

Salamanca — Cory Holleran 6 pass from Maddox Isaac; Easton Chudy extra-point no good, 6-0

Schuylerville — Joe Headen 13 pass from Ollie Bolduc; Silas Schulte extra-point good, 7-6

Second Quarter

Salamanca — Zach Trietley 8 pass from Isaac; two-point attempt no good, 12-7

Third Quarter

Salamanca — Xavier Peters 28 run; Holleran pass from Isaac two-point attempt good, 20-7

Schuylerville — Landen Cumm 6 run; Schulte extra-point good, 20-14

Fourth Quarter