by TYLER HATHAWAY
CHURCHVILLE, N.Y– Churchville-Chili forced three turnovers, and outscored Spencerport 13-0 in the second half as the No. 2 seed Saints (7-1) beat the No. 7 seed Rangers (2-6) 23-7 on Friday night in the opening round of the Section V Class A1 postseason.
“We’ve been asking our guys all season to have a clean game,” said head coach Dennis Pynn. “To not have turnovers, penalties. And I felt tonight we finally played that. (Spencerport) came out and gave us their best punch, and we played really well tonight overall.”
“The team played great today,” said quarterback Mikey McKeiver. “Line blocked great, running backs ran well, recieivers caught the ball well. We played a great game. Spencerport did as well.”
Defense was the story for the Saints. Spencerport moved the ball into the red zone on its first drive and scored on its second drive, but could never generate consistent offense afterwards. The two teams met a few weeks prior, with Churchville-Chili eking out a 29-28 win.
“I really challenged them this week,” said Pynn. “I’m the defensive coordinator, and I got on their case that we needed to do a better job. Last time we played those guys we gave up 28 and had to defend them on a two-point play with 19 seconds left. (Spencerport) played great, and I don’t want to take anything away from them, but I really challenged our guys because I felt we needed to play better than last time.”
Churchville-Chili broke a 7-7 tie as time-expired in the first half with a 22-yard field goal from Austin Gefell. The Saints came out of the halftime break and put together drive that lasted six and a half minutes and ended with a four-yard Jayden Jager touchdown to take control of the game.
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“Getting those points right before half when we had the ability to double dip was huge,” said Pynn. “We wanted the touchdown, but those three points was great to get some momentum going. For me personally, I think the first drive of the second half no matter if you’re on offense or defense really sets a tone. We challenged our offensive line to set the tone of the second half and they did a great job opening holes that our backs did an amazing job with.”
McKeiver completed 9/14 passes for 109 yards and a touchdown while adding 76 yards on the ground on 12 carries. Defensively, he led the defense with eight and a half tackles.
“He’s a coach’s kid,” Pynn said of his quarterback. “His dad coached football for many years, and he’s that guy for me on the field. He knows what he’s looking at, he understands the game better than a lot of people. He’s just a gamer, always ready to go. He makes great decisions on offense, and defensively I put him on the wide side of the field because he makes so many plays in the open field.”
McKeiver was able to generate offense on both designed runs and scrambles. At the end of the first half he scrambled for 15 yards on a third and long that helped the Saints get into better field goal range.
“When I’m rolling out and I see nothing, I just buckle down and hopefully make a couple guys miss and get going,” said McKeiver.
The Saints won three one-score games in the regular season that boosted their confidence to play in atmospheres such as sectionals.
“Once you’ve been in those kind of games, you have that belief of when we get down to the end we’ll be able to pull it out,” said Pynn. “You have belief in yourself. I wish I had a reason why (they were so effective in close games), but we haven’t changed anything. I just feel like this group of kids have really bought into the weight room, really bought into the offseason work, and I think they just have a lot of belief in themselves.”
“Our coach says to bring other teams down into deep water because we stay in the deep water,” McKeiver explained. “That’s our motto the whole year. We just have to stay together and buckle down when things get rough.”
Jager ran the ball 21 times for 100 yards and two touchdowns. Mike Bekirdakis caught seven passes for 104 yards and a touchdown. Zyon Beachum, Malik Abdullah, and Bekirdakis each had an interception.
For Spencerport, Zechariah Blair ran the ball for 96 yards, threw a 13-yard touchdown pass, and had three catches for 73 yards. Nicolas Schiano caught a touchdown. Cole Ciao completed 7/11 passes for 94 yards.
It was the first home playoff game for Churchville-Chili since 2006.
“I’m just so proud of these guys because they’ve bought into exactly what we’re asking to do,” said Pynn of his team. “It’s about culture, it’s about character. I want these young men to someday be great fathers. I want them to be great husbands. And obviously, we want to win football games. But they do all the small things in practice that we always ask them to do. And for me, to finally see it through fruition, being here for almost 25 years, it’s pretty amazing to see this. And my son’s a senior on the team, so it’s a pretty cool atmosphere to be a part of.”
The Saints will host third-seeded Hilton in the semifinals next week.
“We need to keep blocking well,” McKeiver said of what will help them make a run. “I had a lot of time in the pocket which allowed me to scramble. We need to run the ball well as well like we did today. And honestly, we need to stay together as one.”
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