By TIM TAYLORValley Sports Report
ENDWELL — A season after being knocked off its perch as Section IV’s dominant Class B football team, the Spartans declared their resurgence with a 35-13 non-division victory over Waverly here Friday night.
Waverly coach Jason Miller knew coming in that his team would be facing a major challenge.
“We really struggled on offense and there's things they do,” he said. “It looks good on paper and then you go out, and they block well and they tackle well and they're aggressive and the quarterback’s a threat.
“It's a really good football team. They’ve got like 17, 18 seniors and that's typical when that happens. They had kind of an off-season last year. A lot of those kids came back, good football team.”
After stopping the Wolverines on a three-and-out to start the game, M-E marched 67 yards in nine plays with quarterback Jackson Buckley tossing a 9-yard touchdown pass to lineman Marco Rossi.
The pass was intended for Max Policare, who was standing at the goal line, but the Wolverines’ Axel Murray jumped up from behind and batted the pass away. It landed in the arms of a somewhat surprised Rossi at the one and he took it in for the score. Buckley ran for the PAT to make it 8-0 with 6:16 on the first quarter clock.
Waverly responded quickly with an 82-yard kick return by Chase Wheeler nine seconds later. The PAT kick failed, making it an 8-6 game.
“That's a big play for us,” said Miller. “We had to block well. We spent a lot of time on that kick return and all special teams. For the most part, special teams were pretty good. Kick coverage was OK and it's nice to get the punt. Punts were great.”
Ben Shaw forced Policare to cough up the ball and Axel Murray recovered it at midfield, but a holding penalty would be key in forcing a Waverly punt.
The Spartans overcame a pair of penalties on a long run by Joey Chesna with Buckley scoring on a 10-yard run on the first play of the second quarter and Cameron Tarbox’s PAT kick made it 15-6.
Waverly would turn the ball over on downs at its own 40 and Policare would score from 18 yards out on a pitch at 6:54 of the second period. Tarbox’s PAT kick made it 22-6.
Both teams would turn the ball over on downs on their next possessions and the half would end with Waverly in possession at midfield.
The Wolverines came out strong on defense to start the second half, holding M-E to a pair of 1-yard runs and an incomplete pass before punting.
Waverly turned the ball over on downs at their own 47 and the Spartans capped a 53-yard drive with a 6-yard run from Policare with 2:35 left in the third quarter. A failed PAT kick made the score 28-6.
The Wolverines punted on their next possession and Buckley broke free for a 77-yard TD run at the buzzer. Tarbox’s PAT kick made it 35-6 heading into the fourth quarter.
Waverly’s offense got on track with a 13-play, 68-yard scoring drive capped by QB Cooper Chrystie’s 20-yard run with 5:03 remaining in the game.
Chrystie had two runs for 22 yards during the drive and completed a 15-yard screen pass to Matthias Welles, who bulled his way to a 15-yard gain. The QB also connected with his twin brother, Carter, three times for 17 yards.
Jesse Lantz tacked on the PAT kick to make it 35-13.
The Spartans controlled the trenches. They were able to set up their offense for a 446-yard performance, 396 of which came on the ground. Meanwhile, the defense held Waverly to 202 yards.
“It's not a secret we're not very big up front and I thought kids played hard,” Miller said. “They did some things, movement post-snap that kind of confused us a little bit with the assignments. A little different alignments pre-snap and then they moved, so they did some great things up front and made it difficult for us to get any consistency at all running the ball.
“There were still positive plays, those five and six yard runs. We got impatient the first half trying to throw the ball down field and they hung right with us. There really weren’t guys open. There's things I saw that I think it'll make us better in the long run and I knew that coming into it.”
Cooper Chrystie was 12-for-22 through the air for 71 yards and he rushed for 45 more on 11 carries.
Waverly struggled a bit with its passing game against an impressive pass defense, but Miller has confidence in his sophomore thrower, whom he knows will get better with more experience.
“A lot of it was on the sprint-outs where he overthrew or on the posts,” Miller said. “He's got to get a little bit more touch on it, but you know, he's got a strong arm. When that man coverage is like that it makes it difficult. You want to throw him open, just threw him a little too far open.
“I like the way he sprinted out. I think there's some things we need to improve on there as far as timing throwing the ball, but he's straight out on the edge and we need to get him to make a little quicker decisions and then run, because for all intents and purposes, a quarterback sweep. You don't like what you got, you’ve got to tuck it and go.
“We'll find things. I think I knew coming in the option is an issue right now and that's a great thing about seeing it now because it's what we're going to see at the end of the year.”
Carter Chrystie had six receptions for 34 yards, Wheeler had four for 17 yards and Welles added two more for 20 yards.
Rylen Larson ran the ball eight times for 419 yards and Shaw added 11 yards on three runs before suffering an injury.
Waverly (1-1) hosts Owego (0-1) Friday night.
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IN PHOTO 1: Waverly’s Chase Wheeler. IN TOP PHOTO: Waverly offensive linemen. … PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
