By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
Don’t look now but there’s a new king of the hill for football in the town of Greece.
Greece Arcadia senior Latrell Rowe caught a pair of touchdown strikes from senior quarterback Brian Shonitsky and also made two clutch interceptions on defense as the Titans edged visiting Athena 14-12 on Friday night.
Appropriately, the clash of cross-town rivals wasn’t decided until the final minute. After Arcadia stopped Athena (2-2) on third-and-goal from the 5, a 22-yard field goal try missed wide left with 40 seconds remaining.
The Titans (3-1) then just needed to kneel down once before celebrating victory in the first night home game in school history.
“It feels good to be back on top of Greece again, especially since it’s been Athena the past 10 years,” Shonitsky said. “If you’d have looked at us a year ago, you wouldn’t think we’d have come this far.”
Yet here the Titans are, riding a three-game winning streak and getting better every week.
Rowe has a lot to do with the advancement. With football pushed to a spring season during the 2020-21 school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rowe didn’t play due to a basketball commitment, Arcadia head coach Brian Shonitsky said.
Now back on the gridiron, Rowe is making up for lost time in a big way. He has caught two touchdown passes in each of the past three games and also has three interceptions.
It doesn’t seem to matter who throws the ball, it’s ending up in his hands.
“If I look at 4 (Rowe’s number), I know he’s going to come down with the ball,” the Titans quarterback said.
This isn’t a team relying on just one player, however. In last week’s 30-27 win over Brockport, junior wideout Marcus Moore also caught a pair of TD passes.
“Latrell gives us another threat,” the elder Shonitsky said. “They have to double-team either Latrell or Marcus.”
Opponents also need to worry about his ball-catching prowess when he’s playing defense. He thwarted a first-quarter Athena threat by leaping in front of Matthew Tallini to intercept a Jayden Rapp pass at the Arcadia 5.
The Trojans finally broke a scoreless tie with 4:20 remaining in the first half as sophomore running back Andrew Hill powered into the end zone from 2 yards out. Hill carried 23 times in the game for 172 yards. The kick, however, was missed and Athena led 6-0.
The Titans took a 7-6 lead into halftime after Shonitsky threw a perfect 29-yard pass to Rowe in the right corner of the end zone.
The lead didn’t last long. Athena took the kickoff to start the third quarter and executed a seven-play, 50-yard scoring drive, capped by Rapp’s hit-him-in-stride scoring strike to junior Matthew Ranalletta in the back right corner of the end zone.
Arcadia was quickly in trouble again after sophomore Connor Osier pressured Shonitsky on the rush, leaped, batted the pass into the air and then intercepted in Titans territory.
Rowe, however, ended the ensuing Athena drive by intercepting a pass down the right sideline.
“The play before, I saw the quarterback look at him (Ranalletta) so I knew he was going that way,” Rowe said.
Nine plays later, Rowe was catching the ball again, this time from Shonitsky. Racing down the right sideline, he angled toward the post and hauled in the bullet 15-yard pass for a 14-12 lead with a minute left in the third quarter.
“The coaches said if there’s no safety in the middle, throw the post,” the quarterback said. “At the end of the day, we go to No. 4 when we need it.”
Said Rowe: “All the practice, all the hard work we’ve put in is paying off.”
There was more work to be done before the Titans could celebrate, however. With 4:01 remaining, Athena started on what would be its final drive and let Hill do much of the work.
After two rushes by Hill, the Trojans were at the Arcadia 18 and eventually worked the ball to the 4 with second down and 1:28 to play. A tackle for loss and incompletion left the Athena facing fourth-and-goal from 5 and the field goal try failed.
That’s a great, young team over there and we knew it would be a four-quarter back,” coach Shonitsky said. “And when it comes to Greece vs. Greece football, you want bragging rights.”
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