Here’s the plot (the “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back” formula for instant entertainment success): Team starts hot, team struggles through bad breaks and adversity, team prevails in the end. You've seen it a hundred times (think Remember the Titans). There’s a reason this formula works in movies.
It’s because it sells.
The Southwestern Trojans, the #1 seed in Class C High School football for over a year, wrote the script for their second straight state championship, and this one had the perfect ending to a pretty darned good story. The story had all the requisite elements; intrigue, a good plot, worthy protagonists, villains (hint, they were wearing stripes and are NOT big fans of instant replay), and a dénouement to die for. It had an ensemble, all star cast with stand-out performances, a few twists and turns, and a climax ending that went according to script. No surprises here, a Disney movie of a football game (though less so if you’re from Bronxville).
Fueled by huge plays on both sides of the ball, the Southwestern Trojans kept their fans in suspense, letting the drama build until into the 4th quarter, when they stepped on the gas pedal and pulled away from the Bronxville Broncos for a 40-14 win. Plenty of fingernails got plenty of chewing on Saturday afternoon in the Syracuse Carrier Dome.
Zack Sopak garnered game MVP awards for the game, throwing for 220 yards and 4 touchdowns. Will Sleggs turned in an astounding all around performance with 4 catches for 153 yards (including a 65-yarder that flopped the field when Sopak hit him in stride with his heels in his own end zone, and a 47 yarder dropped down the chimney that was partially tipped), 11 tackles and a timely interception with Bronxville driving for the tying score…as key a set of football plays as you are likely to see in a game this big. Ryan Buzzetto had 16 tackles of slippery Bronco backs, Jake Currie had two sacks, Johnny Mistretta picked up every loose defender in the SW backfield, and a hundred more individual efforts and plays to re-live and remember for a lifetime.
So let the comparisons begin, because as sports fans that’s what we do. Forget for a minute the intra-scholastic debate about whether these are the best teams in the history of their respective schools. Surely, the Randolph faithful woke up Sunday morning believing their team might just find a way to beat the Southwestern Trojans, and Southwestern fans are wondering what would keep these Trojans from winning every game they play against ANY team, school size be damned. These are surely two of the best teams to play in their NYSPHSAA classes ever.
Randolph’s two championships in four years is a monumental achievement, accomplished with two distinct rosters. Southwestern pulled off a back-to-back classic (piling up 29 wins in a row in the process) that has the pundits cracking open the record books, and they did it with mostly the same cast of athletes. So, which is more impressive? It’s a fun and meaningless exercise that takes nothing away from winning a state title….the stuff of county-centric water-cooler debates. But the point that cannot and should not be overlooked is that these are our debates, western, New York…they belong to us. It’s a privileged place we occupy and we owe it to these two schools which have provided us these two fantastic football programs.
A nice place to be, isn’t it?
*For more photos and info on local area sports, be sure to check out JASZone.com Your #1 resource for Chautauqua County sports
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TAGS
Chautauqua, Highschool, football, southwestern, bronxville, New York State Championships, Class C |
