Special to The Citizen

NEDROW - There were a lot of questions surrounding Saturday's Section III, Class D West football game between rivals Weedsport and Onondaga.

With no Mike Harts, Latavius Murrays or Bach brothers to grab headlines and tip predictions either way, everyone was wondering who would make the plays that would most likely lead to the second#-place league spot.

It turns out that it wasn't a player that cost the Warriors in the 36 #- 28 loss, it was that old football friend or foe - momentum. Weedsport held a 28# - 6 lead late in the third quarter, but from the moment that Jake DeChick caught the Warriors' last two#-point conversion attempt, everything that could have gone wrong for Weedsport did.

The Warriors committed three turnovers, and they allowed a blocked punt that negated the 28 unanswered points they scored in the second and third quarters.

Tigers coach Jason Ryan replaced tailback Matt Hunter with sophomore JJ Rodriguez, who provided an immediate spark for Onondaga.

“We started him against (Watertown) IHC, and he had a little problem holding on to the football,” Ryan said.

“We took care of that this week by having him carry around a football for a week and we found out that he's a good little running back today.”

It wasn't all Rodriguez, however. The Weedsport defense, which had allowed a mere 15 yards of offense between Onondaga's first touchdown in the first quarter and their second scoring drive late in the third, began to show signs of fatigue.

“It was 28# - 6 and I thought we were about to put them away, and then our guys got tired or what not, and we couldn't stop the basic dive play,” said Warrior coach Jason Trousdale.

“I don't know how you can coach that up. It's a dive, it's right at you, we didn't tackle it.”

The offense wasn't slowing down as much. Craig Mietz led the Warriors with close to 184 yards rushing and two touchdowns, while Jordan Stott had 95 yards on the ground.

But three second#-half turnovers doomed the Warriors.

Weedsport lost two fumbles and Chris Cota picked off Abe Jordan to give the Tigers' offense more time on the field, and Justin Stellmack blocked a punt that led to Onondaga's game#-tying score.

“If we don't turn the football over, we win the game, and we hand the ball to them in the second half,” Trousdale said. “It comes down to turnovers once again.”

When the Tigers' offense was on the field in the second half, it seemed to click. Rodriguez started turning the corner on the option pitch.

The speedy sophomore left several would-be Weedsport defenders diving at his shoestrings after missed tackles, while fullback Zach Holbrook (79 yards, three touchdowns) ate up yardage in the middle.

“If we can stop the dive, they can't do the rest of the stuff,” Trousdale said.

“We got guys in position, we just couldn't make tackles.”

Saturday's loss will most likely mean that Weedsport will finish third in the division, meaning it will hit the road when playoffs begin in two weeks.

The Warriors finish up the regular season next week at Beaver River.

Before then though, Weedsport can look forward to a few grueling workouts aimed at conditioning.

“We'll probably run a lot on Monday,” Trousdale said,

“And then we're going to push the sled. I don't know if we'll run any plays at all. I doubt we run any plays for the first two days. We'll probably just condition, because that's what it came down to today.”

WCS 0 12 16 0 #-- 28

OCS 6 0 6 24 #-- 36

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

OCS -- Holbrook 4 run (pass failed)

Second Quarter

WCS --Mietz 4 run (pass failed)

WCS -- Rose 20 pass from Jordan (run failed)

Third Quarter

WCS -- Jordan 1 run (Mietz run)

WCS --Mietz 46 run (DeChick pass from Jordan)

OCS Holbrook 2 run (run failed)

Fourth Quarter

OCS -- Holbrook 2 run (Holbrook run)

OCS -- Rodriguez 8 run (Holbrook run)

OCS -- Cota 25 pass from Zabel (Holbrook run)

Tigers 36

Warriors 28