By TIM IRVING
Spencerport’s football team saw the weather forecast and their grass field and as a group, gave a big smile.
“At this time of the year, weather is a factor and our style of play is suited to this. I like the natural grass, tonight was a mud bowl but, do you know how much fun the kids had playing in this?” Rangers coach John Dowd said after his team dominated East 39-8 in advancing to the team’s first Section V Class A2 Championship game.
The Spencerport sideline was a swamp and midfield was all mud by the end of the final game played there this season.
The Rangers got the opening kickoff and Taron Beachum got the payoff from two yards out as the rain and slight gusts of wind started to pick up. Cameron Mesh ran in the two-point conversion as kicking would have been tricky.
On the Eagles first possession, Jahyleen Quick recovered a fumble and gave the ball back where Mesh scored on a sweep from 16 yards away and then recorded the two-point conversion on the same play for a 16-0 lead.
“He’s been with us for three years and been in played in Sectionals and has another year, thank goodness,” Dowd said of Mesh.
Early in the second quarter, the Rangers got the ball back and Mesh went left for 42 yards and another two-point conversion, 24-0 Spencerport at the half.
In the third quarter, the Rangers and their clock-killing double-wing offense scored again on the ground with fullback Joey Marcello punching it up the middle for four yards.
The Spencerport defense, largely unheralded with the offensive weapons, kept pouring down on East like the rain and on a fumble in Eagles end, the ball ended up in the end zone with defensive captain Jackson Burns getting the score.
Kelvin Shepard scored on a 76-yard run and the Eagles drove to the Spencerport one just as time expired. The Rangers now take a shot at the program’s first Sectional title, Friday night at Webster Schroeder against two-time defending champion Canandaigua.
“Spencerport football is one of the younger programs in Section 5,” Dowd said. “It’s a big accomplishment for our kids and our school. The big thing we wanna do is go there hungry and not just happy to be there.”
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