RED RAIDERS SURVIVE, DEFEAT CRUSADERS IN A CLASSIC
A furious finish at the Robert J. Stransky Memorial Complex in West Seneca saw the St. Francis Red Raiders take down the Canisius Crusaders by a slim 32-29 margin.
It was the type of contest that came down to the very end, and as such a roller coaster of emotions was felt on the Red Raiders’ sidelines according to coach Jerry Smith.
“You're angry, you're happy, then you're angry and then you're happy again, and that's just the way the whole game went,” Smith said. “We just had to persevere at the end. In a game like that, a lot of times you can worry about what went wrong instead of saying, ‘Listen, just keep playing hard, and good things will happen. Just keep doing your job and don't try to do somebody else's. That's really what we kept focusing on the whole time.”
Canisius’ Elijah Kimble, the reigning Connolly Cup winner and recent Syracuse commit, opened the scoring by taking a handoff 44 yards for a touchdown and a few minutes later, St. Francis responded on an 18-yard swing pass from Trent Buttles to Tyrone Clark that would end in the end zone.
Kimble answered back with his second rushing touchdown of the day from 36 yards out to retake the lead, but St. Francis would score again on another touchdown pass from Buttles – this time down the seam to Ben Rogers to take a 15-14 lead going into halftime.
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At the beginning of the second half, Clark, who has also been a Connolly Cup finalist, found paydirt on a 49-yard run to extend the Red Raider lead but the Crusaders came roaring back via a third Kimble score from 27 yards away. That run moved Kimble past former Iroquois running back Trevor Barry for third on Western New York’s all-time rushing touchdown list, and a field goal by Levi Sisto gave Canisius a 23-22 lead.
St. Francis’ kicker, Jacob Janis, also got in on the action to retake the lead 25-23 on a short field goal of his own but once again Kimble wouldn’t be denied. A 52-yard rush resulted in his fourth score of the afternoon and Canisius once again took the lead.
But Clark and the Red Raiders weren’t done. The senior running back got his third tally of the game on an electric 50-yard run to take back the lead for good with 3:15 to go.
“We just never gave up,” Clark said. “We kept our heads up and kept fighting. We knew we had to come together as a team to get the job done and we did what we had to do.”
“What more can you say about Tyrone? He's just a beast, man,” Smith said. “I keep telling all of these colleges – if you pass him up, that's at your own peril because this guy’s good, he runs hard, and he's not even touching what his potential and what his ceiling is yet.”
There was just one problem left – Canisius had plenty of time remaining to come back and win the ball game. A long drive resulted in the Crusaders setting up shop inside the red zone and with no timeouts left and 21.9 seconds to go, a running play by Kimble was stuffed short of the goal line.
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Because the clock was running and there was no way to stop it, each team had to rush their field goal units out to the field to try and beat the clock. The ball was snapped with two seconds left and Sisto’s attempt, however, was blocked as time expired by Evan Greenough.
“I’m extremely proud of them,” Smith said. “Once they got in the red zone, they didn't gain a yard and then we had that big play when they tried to be a little fancy and we just got in there so fast and wouldn't let it happen. That was huge.
“And then trying to get on the field and kicking like that where everybody's not settled, Greenough came up huge. We keep telling them about the old Steve Tasker trick – dive for the foot, don't dive for the ball. That's what he did, he dove for the foot and he hit that ball as it came off the ground.”
Now at 5-0 on the season, Smith believed that moments like today’s game will benefit his athletes in the future.
“It's been challenging and also rewarding,” Smith said. “I think these guys are making a lot of memories, and quite honestly they're fighting to reach how great they can be. Games like this help them understand that.
“They help to handle pressure because once they get out of high school, pressure's there all the time in everything you do in your life. This is fun pressure and I think they're responding to that.”
Featured Image by Craig Zlotek/WNYAthletics
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