Shaker wins battle of unbeatens
LATHAM, N.Y. » The celebration on the Shaker sideline was more subdued than expected.
The Blue Bison solidified their position as the top team in football’s Class AA after scoring a measly 14 points, but its defense stood tall holding Shenendehowa to just seven points and reaching the midway point with a perfect 4- 0 record.
But as Shaker gutted out the 14-7 victory, much of the conversation was about junior running back Jovani Wiggs who left the game late in the third quarter, carted off the field after an apparent left leg injury that required an air cast to be applied on the field.
His absence had as much to do with the Bison’s’ win as his 110yard night on just 10 carries prior to the injury.
“He’s one our energy guys,” Shaker head coach Greg Sheeler
said. “He’s the guy who’s always bouncing around, fired up and when he went down it took the wind out of our sail a little bit, but adversity happens in life, it happens in football and we responded the right way today.”
It was Wiggs who put Shaker up 7- 0 to open the second quarter with a 46yard touchdown run and as he was on his way to the hospital to be evaluated Shenendehowa rallied to tie the contest with 8:53 left in the third.
Plainsmen quarterback Brendan Belott escaped the pressure from the Bison defense and found Jonathan Ray for a 21-yard gain on
third down, followed that up with a 10-yard toss to Brendan Disonell before sophomore Dyvante Terrelonge somehow came up with a ball in the corner of the sideline among two defenders for a 35-yard reception that put the ball on the three-yard line. Two plays later, senior Kiernan Shanahan plunged in for the game-tying score.
“Shen is an excellent football team, that quarterback is one of the best in the area and we just kept gutting it out, we kept making plays and responding to the adversity,” Sheeler said.
Giving the ball back to a team that averaged 60-points per game prior to Friday night’s battle of previously unbeaten teams had an expected outcome.
Shaker used more than five minutes, drove 55-yards on 10-plays, relying now on senior Ravion Burt to run between the tackles to go up 14-7 with 3:19 left.
The Plainsmen defense didn’t make it easy, hold- ing the Bison at the goal line on quarterback Connor McHugh’s first sneak attempt, hoping to replicate another stand from the second quarter, but
McHugh took a proactive approach when he was unable to breach the pile and leapt up, reached the ball over the pile and broke the goal line plane for the score.
Shenendehowa started with the ball on its own 19yard line and with Belott fworced to throw the ball, the Bison sent the full platoon at times to pressure the QB.
With the ball inside of the 50-yard line and down to its final play, fourth and 10 and Shaker calling a time out prior to the snap, it rested in the Plainsmen’s hands.
With Belott taking the snap with an empty backfield and facing what appeared to be the entire Shaker class of 2019 he ran left, right, scrambled back to his left before taking off towards the sideline markers on the Shenendehowa sideline. He stepped and was pushed out of bounds, but numerous cries by the Plainsmen coaching staff for a penalty went unheard and Shen turned the ball over on downs.
“Sometimes offense carries us, sometimes defense carries us, but I give all the credit in the world to Coach Mike Michela and our defensive staff and the kids responded to the game plan well,” Sheeler said. “That’s two weeks in a row where we’ve dealt with injuries and dealt with comebacks, dealt with momentum swings and it just showed the maturity of our team.
“For us to have that now in week four, it’s a good feeling for me as a coach to know that whatever happens I know these guys are going to come back with great effort.”