ONONDAGA COUNTY – For a long time this spring, it appeared that the only way the inaugural Baldwinsville girls flag football season would end was with the Bees bringing home the first-ever Section III championship in this sport.
Ultimately, the Bees would get there, reaching the Division I championship game last Friday night at Henninger High School’s Sunnycrest Field and, against Syracuse East, putting together a complete performance that resulted in a 19-2 victory.
Syracuse East had the home-field advantage in this game. It also had confidence stemming from its 13-2 win at B’ville at the start of the month that avenged the Bees’ earlier 28-14 win.
What no one other than B’ville had, though, was the knowledge and wisdom gained from a season where it dominated for long stretches but then suffered some setbacks that only seemed to refocus the team’s intensity.
This was especially the case on defense, where the Bees had recorded six shutouts and, on this night, would nearly get a seventh, thwarted only by a last-possession safety long after the outcome was settled.’
All the points B’ville needed came just seven minutes into the game, when Aubrey Rizzo found the end zone to produce a 7-0 advantage, where it would stay for a while.
East stepped up its defense and blanked the Bees the rest of the half, but it was quickly apparent that its offense was going to struggle to get anything in the face of the opposition.
Any time East went to the air, the threat of a turnover loomed – and B’ville delivered it, first with a series of stops, and then by grabbing five interceptions.
Two of them came from Bri Dzuba, and it was the latter of them, in the second half, which set up a short field and directly led to an insurance touchdown from Rizzo on a six-yard run.
Again East tried to throw it and, again, the Bees pounced, with interceptions from Mallory Offredi and Maddie Simons. Freed from pressure to score, B’ville still did so one more time on Rizzo’s third TD of the night.
Just getting to this game required B’ville to beat Syracuse West in the semifinals – not an easy task, since it had lost 13-12 to this very same team earlier in the week in the regular-season finale.
But once again, the Bees’ defense took charge, recording the team’s sixth shutout of the season in a 12-0 decision identical to the first win B’ville got back on April 23.
The return of sophomore Lyla Weber on defense seemed to recharge the unit, who contained Syracuse West from the first snap to the last, especially important during the first half where it remained 0-0 and the tension built.
Patient on offense, B’ville broke through in the second half on Rizzo’s touchdown run before Gabby Valentine threw a scoring pass to Simons. Syracuse West could not answer it.
Syracuse East, beat Liverpool 25-7 in the other semifinal propelled by three touchdowns from Ta’Kai Baker. But in the final Baker and her teammates never got to the end zone, kept there by a Bees side who had already made history just getting on the field – and then added to it by what it did there.
More history now looms in the form of a first-ever state flag football tournament, starting Wednesday when B’ville faces the Section IV champion in the regional final at Union-Endicott High School.
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