Leading off today: Guards win NCAA basketball tournaments for you, and quarterbacks win high school football championships.
Section 6 schools earned an unprecedented three NYSPHSAA championships today -- and the Buffalo area's best team, Orchard Park, doesn't even set foot on the field until tomorrow. Quarterback play was at the center of victories in Class A by Sweet Home, Class C by Jamestown Southwestern and Class D Maple Grove at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse.
"That's what I was thinking on my porch this morning at 4 a.m., 'What's the common denominator here?'," Section 6 football chairman Chuck Funke said. "And all four of them have got great quarterbacks, great leadership. Those are four great kids, they really are."
Sweet Home senior Casey Kacz went 11-for-15 for 246 yards and two touchdowns in a 35-28 victory against Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake. Zack Sopak threw for 92 yards and two TDs and ran for 77 yards and another score as Southwestern handled Croton-Harmon, 35-7. And junior Chris Secky was a masterful 8-for-9 for 214 yards and three long scoring strikes to Joe Caporale in Maple Grove's 55-7 domination of Moriah.
Individual sections had brought home two championships in one year 16 times since the state tournament began. The star quarterbacks made Section 6 the first to win in triplicate.
I've been taking grief for years," a joyous Funke said, looking over to several other sectional chairmen gathered nearby. "Now's the time to even the score. It's good to be on the 'first' end of this deal. Love it. It's a beautiful day. I got up early and I'm going to get to bed late."
Saturday's rapid recap: Kacz directed Sweet Home scoring drives of 71, 95, 90, 63 and 97 yards over the first 42 minutes. The objective changed when he got the ball back with six minutes left and a 35-28 lead.
"We had to make plays," Kacz said. "I had a couple of picks and everything but I just had to block them out. Every play in the huddle what we thinking about was just moving the sticks and getting three and four yards at a time."
Sweet Home consumed the remaining time with a 13-play drive that reached the Burnt Hills 19 and left the Panthers with an even 500 yards of total offense. D.J. Nettles rushed three times for 106 yards and caught three balls for 63 yards, finishing his day with two TDs. DeShanaro Morris rushed 24 times for 98 yards and a score.
"We'd seen it all," Burnt Hills senior linebacker Connor Hadcock said. "We can name every play, but it's just a matter of executing. Certain plays we did, certain plays we didn't. We'd stop them and then they'd get the big play. We showed we could come back but then it happened too many times."
Sweet Home went up 28-7 in the second quarter but Burnt Hills cut it to 28-21 midway through the third quarter when the Spartnas gambled. Paul Layton had kicked a 23-yard field goal, but coach Matt Shell took the points off the board, accepted an encroachment penalty and went for the TD on fourth down from the 3.
Layton rolled left and flung a desperate shuffle pass in the direction of the end zone under heavy pressure to turn the ball over on downs. Sweet Home then marched 12 plays in a drive that consumed 5:16 and ended with Morris' 2-yard TD run to make it 35-21.
The middle game of the tripleheader saw Southwestern deliver a knockout blow midway through the second quarter by scoring three TDs in 70 seconds.
"You know what, it's all momentum, man," Croton-Harmon coach John Catano said. "It's all momentum, real quick. The turnovers hurt us, especially deep in our own territory, but what are you going to do about it? You keep going on, you keep playing the game."
Southwestern struck first as Sopak threw to Levi Bursch in the right flat and the junior running back went 20
