Who'll be the fool tonight? (Averill Park @ Troy, football, 4/1/21)

 After two weeks of football season, Troy High & Averill Park had established themselves as the top teams in Class A. That meant that tonight's Senior Night matchup, by all rights, could've either been a defensive struggle, a war of attrition, if you will, or a shootout with the two teams trading touchdowns all night.

It was neither.

Averill Park won the toss and deferred to the 2nd half. At first, the strategy seemed to work, but the two teams traded punts early on. And, then, Troy's offense woke up. Uh-oh.

After a holding penalty wiped out a 35 yard touchdown run by Xavier Leigh, Alex Wolfe hit Nasir Dawud-Soto with a 13 yard toss, but the 2 point conversion failed after Wolfe fielded a low snap. Troy led, 6-0, after the 1st quarter.

Things got chippy in the 2nd period as the penalties began to mount for both squads. You have to believe coaches Bob Burns of Troy and Zach Gobel of Averill Park will have their teams working even harder to correct discipline issues during spring recess, which begins tomorrow. However, Troy put the game away as Wolfe and the offense shredded Gobel's defense as if it was drawn up by George Gobel. Just when the Warriors thought they had Leigh bottled up, the senior tailback broke free for a 46 yard run. Again, the 2 point conversion failed. Four minutes later, after another Warriors punt, Wolfe kept it himself for a 10 yard score. Right before halftime, Wolfe hit Leigh with a shovel pass good for 15 yards. Troy finally got the 2 point conversion, as Wolfe flipped a pass to Jaylen Riggins to give the Flying Horses a 26-0 lead at the break.

Every time Averill Park penetrated Troy territory, the defense shut them down. Leigh scored twice more in the 3rd quarter before getting the rest of the night off, breaking off runs of 26 & 65 yards. However, the conventional point after failed both times. Just seconds into the 4th quarter, Riggins blocked a punt and scampered in for the final TD of the night. He also caught his 2nd 2 point conversion pass.

They played with a running clock for the 4th quarter to speed things along, and Troy ran out the clock after a Warrior punt, moving to 3-0 with a decisive 46-0 win.

Enjoy the video:

Yes, the sound was turned off again. Reason? They can't sync the Rice Krispies PA system to the YouTube stream. The school board really needs to upgrade the PA system, like, last year. I think that system's been around since the FDR administration.

Troy will host Columbia on April 9.

Meanwhile, the women's volleyball team forgot to bring the momentum from Tuesday's win over Albany with them to Ballston Spa tonight. The Lady Horses fall to 1-5 after losing in straight sets to the Lady Scotties.