OHS wiped
out by Forks
By P.J. Harmer
Oneonta Daily-Star Staff Writer
ONEONTA _ Through one quarter Friday
night, Oneonta High looked poised to possibly pull off a
major upset in the Section Four Football Conference.
Six-time defending Section Four champion
Chenango Forks wiped away any chance, however, with two
touchdowns in the second quarter en route to a 28-0
Division III victory.
"We couldn't afford either of those
touchdowns, but especially two of them," OHS coach Adam
Hoover said. "You're down, 7-0, and we were able to move
the ball fairly consistently for a few drives and then
we'd shoot ourselves in the foot. We have to be able to
not allow them a quick one. If we're down, 7-0, or even
14-0 at halftime, it's still going to be a tough game in
the second half. But we're going to be in a better
position if we can maintain a drive, which we did a few
times."
Chenango Forks (4-0, 1-0) opened a 7-0
lead in the first quarter on a 17-yard pass from Jake
Reynolds to Joe Aston. The Blue Devils utilized a
nine-play drive, with all but the touchdown coming on
the ground. Forks' power-running game often pushed
through Oneonta's offensive line to get extra yards.
That didn't seem to affect the
Yellowjackets (1-3, 0-1), who responded by moving the
ball 45 yards to Chenango Forks' 27. But on the 12th
play, Phillip Wright fumbled the handoff from
quarterback Ryan Hunter and Clint Cade recovered for
Forks.
"I thought up front there it's basically
like a goal-line defense and if you don't get every
block, there seems to be someone there," Chenango Forks
coach Kelsey Green said. "Sometimes when you get every
block, there's a defensive back there. We had to throw
the ball a little bit to loosen them up and we were
successful with that. Offensively, they had a nice drive
and hurt themselves with a fumble. After that,
defensively I thought we played pretty well the rest of
the day."
The Blue Devils didn't waste the
opportunity, responding with an eight-play drive capped
by Aston's 4-yard touchdown run with 7 minutes, 51
seconds remaining in the half.
Two plays before the TD, Aston helped set
up the score by pulling in a 21-yard pass from Reynolds
down the right sideline.
"The line did awesome," said Reynolds,
who completed 4 of 6 passes for 89 yards. "I give all
the props to the line and I have some kids who can catch
the ball. I put it out there for them and they reeled it
in. A couple of them had some nice catches."
Again, Oneonta went to work but had to
punt on its seventh play, which helped set up Chenango
Forks for its third touchdown. Cade Garrett caught a
27-yard TD pass from Reynolds with 1:52 to go in the
half to cap a six-play drive and make it 21-0.
"That really broke it open for us and
made the second half a lot easier," Green said.
"Especially knowing we'd get the football to start the
second half."
Forks was forced to punt on the first
possession of the second half, and a deep punt put
Oneonta at its own 7. Four plays later, the
Yellowjackets punted from their 10 and Garrett returned
the ball 33 yards to the 6. Two plays later Max Ginty
pushed his way in to make it 28-0.
"We did move the ball fairly well a few
different times and then we'd do something," Hoover
said. "We had a nice drive and fumbled. You can't do
that against any team and when you're playing a team
that is used to winning and has won six straight
sectional championships, you definitely can't do it
against them."
Dan Sweet had 44 yards on 10 carries to
lead Oneonta. Ryan Hunter completed 4 of 10 passes for
35 yards. Three of those passes went to Marcel Sanchez
for 26 yards.
"We did a pretty good job defensively for
a lot of the game," said Hoover, whose team visits
Windsor at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 29. "We had some big plays
that hurt us that we had them in third-and-4,
third-and-5. Then we'd have a breakdown. One touchdown
was a long play and they set up another with the same
play.
"It's been a thing this year and it
carried over from last year that we allow too many big
plays at times when you can't," he continued. "If it's
first-and-10 and it's a big play, you never want to
allow it, but you can deal with it. When it's
third-and-10, you kind of wasted the first three plays.
We have to do a better job of not allowing that to
happen."