North beats South in bizarre season finale
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

Williamsville North's T.J. McDuffie sees running room versus Williamsville South on Saturday. North won 15-6. Photo by Joe Eberle

The regular season finale between Williamsville South and Williamsville North football, won by North, 15-6, last Saturday at South will not be remembered for who scored a touchdown or a big defensive hit. It will always be remembered for the game that almost never finished.

At the end of the first quarter, South's Nick Brace was ejected for an unsportsmanlike penalty. South coach Ryan Gallo, not happy with the decision, took his team to the locker room. After a 20-minute cooling off period, South, with Gallo, returned to the field and the game resumed. Gallo was not assessed a penalty for his actions and did not want to comment about it after the game.

For North, the play capped off a bizarre season that began with probable All-WNY Player of the Year candidate Rob Gronkowski transferring to Woodland Hills High School in Pennsylvania. Then the October snowstorm hit and canceled North's last two regular season games at Kenmore West and home versus Niagara Wheatfield.

South's last two scheduled games at Cardinal O'Hara and at Lew-Port were also canceled.

"We really wanted to put a stamp on the season," said North coach Mike Mammoliti said after the game. "It's been a season of firsts for me in 23 years of coaching. Things happened that I couldn't think about happening. Today sort of capped it off."

"Our kids played great," he added. "The score was 15-6 but it was pretty evident if you saw the game how lopsided it was. We needed to have closure for the season and for our seniors. It wasn't fitting to have our season end because of the weather."

The North defense forced three turnovers, including a Michael Moore interception on the first play of the game, and sacked South three times, two coming from Moore. Moore's interception led to his own 1-yard TD six plays later.

Fawzi Abdelhay and Kasim Sallaj also recovered fumbles for North.

Eric Dahlman caught an 8-yard option pass from Brian Davis with 2:45 left in the first half for the Spartans' second TD. Zak Boron booted a 35-yard field goal in the third quarter.

The Spartans' T.J. McDuffie rushed 16 times for 97 yards.

Yahs Williams scored the Billies' only score with 2:42 left in regulation. Adrian Wood ran two reverse plays for 58 yards on the drive.

South's Logan Struebing made five tackles. Ralph Rosso had a sack and three tackles. Peter Burke recovered a fumble and made three tackles.

South finished 1-6 and ended its season on a six-game losing streak. It is the sixth straight season South has only won one

game.

"The kids came and prepared like they normally would and they did a great job," said Gallo. "It was a testament to them to finish off their season."

"It was pretty frustrating in the sense of a win-loss standpoint," he added about the season.... We have some things we have to implement in the program as far as strength and conditioning. The kids are starting to understand what that high level of commitment takes."

e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com