By BOB CHAVEZ
CANANDAIGUA — When a winless team rolls into town and beats an undefeated team, logic dictates that it might be termed an upset or maybe a surprise.
But Canandaigua Academy football coach Jeff Welch wasn’t surprised with what he saw in Fairport’s 21-7 win Friday night. He wasn’t thrilled, but he wasn’t surprised, either.
“We knew we’d have a battle and they gave it us,” Welch said following Friday’s game, which spoiled a festive evening of Homecoming activities at CA Stadium.
Indeed, it was the first loss of the season for CA, which falls to 4-1. And it was the first win for Fairport, a Class AA team which arrived in Canandaigua searching for its first win. There was optimism among the Red Raiders, whose size advantage on the offensive and defensive fronts was bolstered by the return of Brenner Patterson. The 6-foot-4 senior was playing in his first game of the season and while he alone wasn’t the reason for Fairport’s success on Friday night, his work with fellow linemen Anthony Rause, Brody McDonald, Jonah Twomey and Aleksander Vetrov cleared the way for clock-eating drives that kept the ball away from the Gray Wolves and their potent offense.
“We definitely wanted to take advantage of that (size difference),” Fairport coach Mike Wayne said. “The whole line fought like hell tonight.”
It did take a bit of time for the Red Raiders to find an offensive rhythm with junior quarterback Marco Provenzano at the helm. But the Fairport defense held it down until the offense came to life and that happened early in the second quarter following a scoreless first half.
Fairport drove to the Canandaigua 32-yard line as the first quarter wound down and in the opening minute of the second, it appeared the drive was going to stall much like the opening drive. But on fourth-and-nine from the 41, the Red Raiders lined up to go for it and a broken play after a handoff to Shane Illingworth ended up with an Illingworth pass to Provenzano, who said he improvised to find space. And once Illingworth found his QB for the pass, he scampered the distance the first TD of the game.
That appeared to be the wakeup call Canandaigua needed and the Gray Wolves responded with an impressive drive that sent sophomore quarterback Austin Kierst into the end zone from a yard out with 8:07 left in the quarter. CA’s extra point made it a 7-6 game after Fairport missed on its TD.
The Red Raiders answered with another drive that twice converted on fourth downs, the second one coming from inside the 1 when Provenzano broke the plane with a leap over the line. And when Ryan Sullivan swept around the left end for the 2-point conversion, Fairport’s lead was 14-7 with 1:15 left in the half.
The clinching drive came late in the third quarter and it was a wild one. The Red Raiders started at their own 2 following a CA punt with 6:38 left. Powered by runs from Daniel Roessel and Carson Trumble, Fairport moved out to the 36 and picked up a first down. Two plays later, it was third-and-6, but an unsportsmanlike penalty negated that and made it third-and-21.
Canandaigua appeared to make the stop to set up a fourth-and-10, but a facemask penalty gave Fairport a first down. Two plays after that, a third-and-8 stop was spoiled by another facemask penalty on the Gray Wolves and even then, a holding penalty on Fairport set up a 2nd-and-20 play from the Canandaigua 40.
On the next play, Provenzano hit Illingworth in stride for a 40-yard TD with 12 seconds left in the third to make it a 21-7 game.
Welch has said before that he welcomes adversity and this game certainly qualified. But the response was lacking.
“I don’t think we answered the challenge,” he said. “And we did not overlook them. We knew they were a physical team and talented. We were outcoached and outplayed, simple as that.”
Wayne said he told his team to stop thinking about being 0-4 and focus on going 1-0 this weekend.
“It’s tough not to think about that,” Provenzano said. “But we know what kind of team we are.”
Canandaigua prepares for a Class A2 showdown at Eastridge next week and got a team-leading 10 tackles from Max Foster while Joel Lloyd had seven. Kierst went 8-for-16 for 108 yards and a rushing TD while junior Declan Cooney caught 7 passes for 93 yards.
Fairport is on the road again at Penfield on Friday. Roessel led Fairport with 146 yards on 28 carries and Provenzano completed two passes for 58 yards and rushed for 28 yards. Ryan Sullivan led the defense with 10 tackles, 2 pass deflections and 2 sacks.
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