Salamanca offense erupts to finish undefeated regular season
By SPENCER BATES, Sports Editor
Warriors’ 52-20 win marks first perfect season since ‘01
For the first time in over 20 years, the Salamanca football team has navigated through its regular season and emerged without a scratch on its record, a perfect 8-0.
Entering the final week of the season, all that stood between the Warriors and its date with destiny was Section 6 Class C South’s newcomers, Eden/North Collins, whom they dismantled in a 52-20 rout on home turf on Friday.
“Obviously, I’m proud, but everything has to do with this group (of players),” Salamanca coach Chad Bartoszek said. “We’ve become a player-led team, and it’s great to see. … Attendance is great, attitudes are great, efforts are great, behavior is great. They’re doing all the right things. So, I think for me, I’m trying to enjoy the moment. I’m always thinking ahead, obviously playoffs are ahead, but it’s mostly just pride (I feel) for that group who grew up dreaming of this, and it’s come true.”
(Photo Courtesy, Jason Wick - ALBUM)
While the achievement is something for the history books, the win still needed to be secured as the Raiders were not going down without a fight. The fortitude of the Warriors was tested, but they held strong and remained true to their identity with quick strikes.
On the first play from scrimmage, Salamanca set the tone with quarterback Maddox Isaac bringing a 44-yard rush to the house. The Warriors scored again before their next snap as Cory Holleran returned a punt from 56 yards. And when they did finally see a second actual play from scrimmage, Isaac broke off another scoring run, this time from 72 yards.
With two plays under their belts, the Warriors had put 21 points on the board.
“I’m happy that these guys get to experience the big plays,” Bartoszek said. “It’s good for us. We know it’s not always going to be like that, but if you’re preparing for us, it’s definitely something you gotta worry about. I know we’ve had games where it doesn’t always work that way, but we’ve had quite a few that it does. So, I think that’s something we’re going to embrace, but we got to just prep ourselves for bad weather games or things that might change.”
After Salamanca’s initial scoring onslaught, Eden/North Collins managed to get on the board, capping a 17-play drive that it had put together. While it may have been the only score the Raiders were able to produce up until the end of the fourth quarter where they scored twice off big plays, their offense showed signs of life. The majority of what the visitors were able to come up with on offense was thanks to junior quarterback Brady Waring.
Having converted a number of times on third and fourth downs in the early goings of the game, Bartoszek said that he was impressed with Waring. He also mentioned how he’s glad that he was able to expose some cracks in their game, that way his team can patch them up before the postseason begins.
“(Eden/North Collins) plays at such a high level,” Bartoszek said. “We have prepped for some pretty heavy run teams. You can go back to Southwestern, Falconer, Randolph, of course. And also, you see a quarterback who’s as skilled as we’ve seen. It was really good for us, our practice week was good, but he was able to get out of the pocket a couple times. … The good thing was it happened and we can correct it.”
Salamanca managed to pile on four more touchdowns and a field goal after the first quarter barrage.
Isaac, who finished 4-for-4 through the air with 47 passing yards and two rushes for 116 more yards, connected on a 20-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Lecceardone in the second quarter. Lecceardone also scored a second punt-return touchdown for Salamanca, this time going 77 yards. Xavier Peters added to his team-leading touchdown tally with a 30-yard rushing score and Conner Seeley managed to find the endzone as well on a two yard-rush in the fourth. Easton Chudy was perfect in the kicking game and recorded a 23-yard field goal as well.
Now the trick for the Warriors is remaining in the day-to-day mentality. While Bartoszek’s players may be chomping at the bit to get going, there is a lot of emphasis on being perfect the rest of the way.
“(My players are) itching to play, they want to play on Tuesday,” Bartoszek laughed. “But we got work to do. Kind of what we talked about is that it’s now or never. Now, it’s every rep. Every rep matters. If you blow a coverage in a playoff game, it could be the end of your season. So that’s what we’re going to really pivot towards for playoff week.”