By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
The high school football season is only in Week 3, but already the Irondequoit Eagles said they felt a little disrespected.
The Eagles entered Friday night’s homecoming showdown against Class A powerhouse Canandaigua with a 2-0 record, the same as the Gray Wolves. They just hadn’t turned heads, though.
“People have been saying we’re not top 10, we’re not this and that,” said Daeshawn Johnson, a senior running back and defensive lineman.
After Friday’s performance, the Eagles are now the hunted. Held to just 24 yards of total offense in the first two quarters, Irondequoit ran wild in the second half and stormed to a convincing 30-15 victory.
Senior defensive lineman Anthony Major returned a fumble 55 yards to the Eagles first TD, senior Cooper Moore ran for touchdowns of 7 and 29 yards and junior Joshua Barr dazzled with a 62-yard dual change-of-direction scamper as Irondequoit scored four times in the final 18 minutes.
“We showed that we’re one of the big dogs,” Johnson said.
Which is precisely what coach Daniel Fichter wanted them to do. This was very much a statement game, considering Canandaigua had strung together five consecutive Section V Class A championships between 2019 and 2023.
“They’re the standard, they’ve been the best team in Class A for a long time,” Fichter said. “We wanted to know where we’re at – and I think we’re right where we need to be.”
In the second half, that is. Truth be told, the Eagles’ offense looked pretty mediocre in the first half. They picked up just one first down, went three-and-out twice and saw their fourth possession end with an interception by Canandaigua’s Austin Kierst.
Still, Canandaigua, despite piling up 165 yards in offense, only led 7-0. Senior quarterback Jack Clark threw a 25-yard TD pass to senior running back Cayden Gullace to cap the game’s first drive. It was Clark’s first pass of the year and definitely caught Irondequoit by surprise.
But after that, whenever the Eagles needed a big play on defense, someone stepped up. Senior linebacker Sam Thore thwarted a fourth-and-four try at the Irondequoit 15 with a clutch tackle of Gullace, one of his 15 tackles in the game.
Thore also ended Canandaigua’s third possession with a fumble recovery while Barr denied the Gray Wolves a possible touchdown at the end of the half with a leaping, juggling interception in the end zone.
Thus, despite doing little with the ball, Irondequoit trailed by only 7-0 at intermission.
“We just needed a spark and if we got one, we knew our offense would catch fire,” Fichter said.
The spark came following a few halftime adjustments, as the Eagles drove 57 yards in eight plays to reach the Canandaigua 1 on the opening possession of the third quarter. But drive fizzled when Johnson fumbled and Canandaigua’s George Mirras recovered in the end zone.
Major, however, one-upped the Gray Wolves in the turnover game. With Canandaigua on the move, a fumbled pitch left the ball loose on the turf at the Irondequoit 45. Major plucked it out of a pile and sprinted untouched the other way for the touchdown, and Moore’s conversion run put the Eagles ahead 8-7.
“I saw the guy dropped the ball and I just picked it up and I didn’t hear a whistle so I kept on running,” Major said.
Canandaigua retaliated immediately, driving 72 yards in just nine plays, with Clark carrying the final 11 yards for the go-ahead touchdown and a 15-8 lead in the final minute of the third quarter.
The Eagles countered with their own quick long, quick drive, a nine-play, 65-yard march that was capped by Moore’s seven-yard sprint to the right pylon. Moore was stopped on the PAT run so Canandaigua still led, 15-14.
For all of 3 minutes and 36 seconds, that is. On the ensuing possession, Johnson recovered a fumbled exchange in the backfield and gave Irondequoit a first down on the Canandaigua 36. It was Johnson’s first of two huge defensive plays in the half.
The Eagles needed only six plays to score, with Moore again doing the honors, this time on a 29-yard cut-back run and Cristian Freeman’s PAT run gave Irondequoit a 22-15 lead.
“We knew we could run the ball, we just needed to be more physical,” said Moore, who rushed 17 times for 109 yards. “The line blocked great; I couldn’t do it without them.”
The Gray Wolves went on the attack on the next possession, moving from their own 31 to the Irondequoit 32 in only six plays.
But on fourth-and-eight, Johnson came up big again. As Clark tried to turn the left corner on a quarterback keeper, Johnson took him one-on-one near the sideline and powered him to the turf two yards shy of the first-down marker.
The tackle was redemption. He felt he had let his team down by fumbling the ball away on the first drive of the second half.
“I just reimagined what happened when I fumbled at the goal line and knew this was kind of my chance for the big get-back,” Johnson said.
Barr then scored the clinching touchdown just three plays later with his 62-yard scamper. He started left but found no space so, while still behind the line of scrimmage, cut back to the right.
Again, however, there was nowhere to run, so he reversed direction a second time and, using a pancake block by Major, sprinted free down the left side and into the end zone. He finished with 118 yards on only eight carries.
“We had to show who we are as a football team – one of the best in Section V,” Major said.
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