Kicking off: Chatham junior running back
Josh Keyes posted his second straight monster game Saturday, rushing for 402 yards and eight touchdowns during a 56-14 victory over Watervliet.
A week ago, Keyes scored seven touchdowns on just nine touches during a 62-0 rout of Cairo-Durham. Against Watervliet, he scored on runs of 10, 10, 3, 52, 24, 4, 45 and 65 yards.
Keyes’ yardage total ranks fifth in Section 2 history. The record is held by Coxsackie-Athens’ Brandon Ryan, who ran for 442 yards against Bishop Gibbons in 2002.
Will Montgomery of The Troy Record chimed in quickly to raise questions about the latest effort from Keyes, who has rolled up 1,221 yards on just 84 rushing attempts this fall. The seventh TD came with 1:33 left in the third quarter of a 42-7 ballgame. The final TD came when the score was 49-14 with 6:02 to go.
Montgomery took issue with Keyes still carrying the ball late in a lopsided game, but Chatham coach Mark Dwyer defended his decision.
"One, he’s been sick, so I wanted to keep him moving," Dwyer said. "The other thing is, at the end of the first half he got tackled and got a knot on his calf. Every time he stood around, it tightened up on him."
Dwyer said the final TD, a 65-yard run off an audibled toss play, was unintended. Keyes was put back on the field after two backups missed assignments.
"We haven’t played a 48-minute game since Voorheesville, so another thing is I have to make sure my kids go in the fourth quarter," Dwyer said.
Here's part of Montgomery's take:
"Chatham had been on the opposite side of similar beatings from Watervliet for years and years during the Cannoneers' prominence in the 1990s, so perhaps this was a payback victory for years of frustration, not to mention Watervliet's postseason upset in Chatham last season," he wrote. "That's a reason but it's no excuse.
"Rather than admit making a mistake in judgment or admit chasing records or admit holding a grudge against Watervliet, Dwyer threw his other players under the bus, telling reporters his second and third string players missed blocks and were removed from the game. He also blamed his quarterback for calling the toss play on Keyes final run, rather than admit having Keyes on the field in the first place was a mistake."
And, as Montgomery noted, what better way is there to work the bugs out in your second- and third-stringers than to get them onto the field and give them meaningful experience?
My view on situations remains unchanged: All starters are entitled to play through the first series of the third quarter regardless of the score. A coach should want every player to remain focused through the break and at the very least take even the minimal warmups before the third quarter seriously in case they get thrown into the game.
Beyond that, though, letting a kid pile up numbers after it's become a 42-0 game becomes dubious in a hurry.
And Montgomery is spot-on regarding the blame game: The QB may have audibled, but the coach has ultimate responsibility for who was on the field at the time.
First down: Senior Anthony Acevedo scored five touchdowns and led undefeated New Hartford, ranked fourth in Class A by the New York State Sportswriters Association, to a 49-26 victory over No. 14 Fulton.
Acevedo rushed 11 times for 118 yards and four rushing touchdowns. He also caught a 40-yard pass from QB Vin Servadio on the final play of the first half, batting the ball to himself over the outstretched arms of two defenders for a 30-12 lead.
"I knew I couldn’t make the catch when the ball came down because the Fulton guys were in my way," Acevedo told The Post-Standard "So, I tapped the ball up into the air and then ran under it when it came down."
