Salamanca tops Timon in Senior Night shutout

The Salamanca football team honored its seniors Friday night, showed some offensive flashes and put the game away early enough to get some rest and start preparing for a busy week ahead of the Warriors.

With all that in mind, Salamanca coach Chad Bartoszek walked off the Veterans Memorial Park field happy with a 28-0 non-league, home regular season finale victory over Bishop Timon.

Senior quarterback Hayden Hoag completed 7-of-12 passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns and an interception. Senior wide receiver Cole Hedlund scored both passing touchdowns, marking three catches for 91 yards. Hayden’s twin brother, tight end Harley Hoag, pulled in two passes for 55 yards and

The senior-laden passing game helped balance out a big day from junior running back Jesse Stahlman, who had 13 carries for 100 yards and two touchdowns.

(Photo Courtesy, Salamanca Press)

“We're going to see some more of that type of coverage: Allegany did it, teams are going to try to come up and try to really stuff us up front because of the way Jesse's been running the ball and the way he's been playing,” Bartoszek said. “So we're going to need those plays. I could tell that Hayden had a little bit of moxie to him tonight where he's been letting some things float. He let the one float, but everything else he was pretty on point. He's a real good thrower and he's going to lead us to where we need to go.”

Salamanca escaped the on-field action with minimal injury concerns, but scratched speedy sophomore wideout Lucus Brown with an injury suffered in pregame warmups.

“Hopefully we get him back,” Bartoszek noted.

Running back Clarence Prude led Timon (1-5) with 70 rushing yards.

Bartoszek admitted the coaching staff was mindful of a quick turnaround ahead for the Warriors. Salamanca (4-1, 2-1) travels to Falconer on Tuesday to play Cassadaga Valley/Falconer/Maple Grove in a Section 6 Class C South divisional game rescheduled from Week 4. The Warriors then are set to play Chautauqua Lake on the following Saturday for three games in eight days.

“It was hard not to look beyond this game, and it's not because we weren't respecting Bishop Timon, just because we've got three games in eight days,” Bartoszek said. “So it's hard not to look to the next game, which is a huge league game. Maybe it wasn't for these guys because it's Senior Night, Homecoming. We didn't have the greatest week of practice because of some of the distractions, but these guys … they had a lot of fun tonight and I think their families, the senior families, got to really see everyone play and we were pretty good all over the place. Not great, but we were pretty good everywhere. So it was fun.”

Leading 21-0 at halftime, Salamanca drove 94 yards on the opening drive of the second half, leading to Stahlman’s second touchdown with 7:27 remaining in the third quarter. From there, the Warriors started to cycle out starters to try to stay healthy for next week.

“We needed this. We were able to pull early in the third and just alleviate some of the extra dings on the turf and things like that,” Bartoszek said. “So it was huge for us. We've had some kids really working hard in practice, so it was nice to get them in. We lost a JV game because of this next game, so some of those JV kids were able to get in for quite a bit, it was nice.”

Tuesday’s trip to Falconer could be crucial to the Warriors’ chances at a top-two finish — and a home Class C playoff game — out of the C South division, as a win would push Salamanca to second over CV/F/MG (3-1, 2-0).

“We're going to change up our schedule,” Bartoszek said of the quick turnaround. “Tomorrow we're going to be right back on the field practicing. We're going to go easy on them but we're going to get right back into it, which we haven't done, we usually do film. We're going to give them some time to rest and then Monday's going to be all that prep. This point in the season, it's just little adjustments and it's guys making plays. It's different. COVID has kind of messed with all these schedules, but they're going to have to be ready. It's a huge game in the division.”