SALAMANCA — For the Salamanca football team, its Section 6 Class C Quarterfinal fixture came with some of déjà vu.
Just like the opening round of their previous postseason campaign, the Warriors squared off with Cleveland Hill. They also managed to dispatch of the Golden Eagles with great similarity, claiming a 49-12 victory Friday in front of a rowdy home crowd.
For coach Chad Bartoszek, who has said that he’s trying to enjoy the highs a bit more this season, the win came with a great sense of pride in his players’ abilities in a playoff atmosphere.
“I do enjoy the way we played, there’s something about playoff atmosphere, once you’re here, at least in my brain, everything kind of flips over,” Bartoszek said. “Every rep is valuable, and every possession we were working on something. We’re putting all of our years of hard work together and it was another great start. Everyone was flying around. So, I’m proud of them.”
Salamanca went about its win in an extremely efficient manner. The first empty drive for the Warriors did not come until the fourth quarter. According to Bartoszek, much of that comes down to the options his team has all over the field.
“Obviously we’ve got a lot of places we can go with the ball,” Bartoszek said. “The speed in which Maddox (Isaac) is playing with right now is helping in all areas, because we can counter off of stuff. We can run our running backs, our TEs, we can hit our receivers, but at any moment, he could pull it and he had two long (touchdowns) today. What we’re looking for is consistency and the turnovers weren’t there again. Those are the things that we’ll reflect on here.”
Maddox Isaac garnered a heap of praise from his play-caller after the victory. Not only were his stats outstanding, rushing four times for 85 yards and two touchdowns as well as going 4-for-9 in the passing game for 62 yards and a touchdown, but so too was his ability to control the tempo.
“I want him to really start making it more about (saying) ‘This is my game. I’m going to take over. I’m going to control,’” Bartoszek said. “He did a great job with our cadence tonight. We got a couple offsides, motions were on point, we were communicating well. I want him to take that mentality as a quarterback like the starting pitcher. ‘I’m going out, I’m throwing nine innings, I’m gonna finish this thing myself.”
But it was far from Isaac doing all the work. Quinten Brown found his way into the endzone twice, rushing for 61 yards on five touches. Xavier Peters and Zach Trietley each scored as well, the former racking up 149 yards on the ground on 11 attempts. Payton Bradley reeled in the only passing touchdown for the Warriors from 22 yards out.
“All these guys can play football, and quite frankly, they could all be ‘the one’ in a lot of years,” Bartoszek said. “Quentin’s role tonight was something that we see value in. He’s got great hands, and he’s athletic, so we moved him around a little bit more today, but he always knows the running back position. … Zach, and our receivers … they’re all itching and we’re going to need them because the big plays are coming.”
One of the messages Bartoszek has been delivering to his players over the course of the last number of weeks is to remain focussed. While he understands that it may feel mundane in that they are no longer trying to implement drastic changes to their system this late in the year, perfecting what they know will come in handy.
And it did just that as the skies opened up and rain fell down in sheets for the majority of the fixture against the Golden Eagles. While Cleveland Hill found themselves the victims of two miscontrolled snaps over the course of its first three plays from scrimmage, Salamanca had no such issues with ball control aside from a few dropped passes.
“Sometimes practice at this point in this season can get monotonous in the way that we’re not changing much,” Bartoszek said. “Yeah, you’re still excited because it’s playoff week, but we’re not installing a bunch of new stuff. We’re just fine tuning. Our challenge for them is to stay focused right now. We’re cutting back because we’re using extra time to stay healthy, hit the weight room and condition more. We want to be hitting top speed right now.”
A first-round win may now be in the back pocket of the Warriors, but the déjà vu is still there as the result set up a playoff matchup next week against Medina, the team they beat at Highmark Stadium last season to claim the program’s first Section 6 title in over 20 years.
What makes this time different is that it will not be at a neutral location. Instead, Medina will have to enter Warrior territory with the opportunity for a trip to the Sectional Final on the line.
AT SALAMANCA
Cleveland Hill 0 0 0 12 — 12
Salamanca 28 14 7 0 — 49
First Quarter
Salamanca — Quinten Brown 4 run; Easton Chudy extra point no good, 6-0
Salamanca — Maddox Isaac 62 run; two-point attempt good, 14-0
Salamanca — Xavier Peters 7 run; Chudy extra point good, 21-0
Salamanca — Payton Bradley 22 pass from Isaac; Chudy extra-point good, 28-0
Second Quarter
Salamanca — Isaac 30 run; Chudy extra-point good, 35-0
Salamanca — Zach Trietley 1 run; Chudy extra-point good, 42-0
Third Quarter
Salamanca — Brown 3 run; Chudy extra-point good, 49-0
Fourth Quarter
Cleveland Hill — Douglas Hunt 23 run; two-point attempt no good, 49-6
Cleveland Hill — Hunt 5 run; two-point attempt no good, 49-12
Team Statistics
C.H. Sala.
First Downs 8 15
Rushes-Yards 34-158 33-355
Passing Yards 19 62
Comp-Att.-Int. 2-4-0 4 -9-0
Total Offense 177 417
Fumbles-Lost 5-2 0-0
Penalties-Yards 3-15 3-45
Punts-Avg. 4-26.0 0-0.0
Total Plays 47 42
