The Fighting Irish battled the heat, their own mistakes, a good Canisteo-Greenwood, and to some partisan eyes, some questionable penalty calls but in the end the home team came out top.
Notre Dame beat the Redskins 31-25, scoring the winning touchdown on a five-yard reception by Zach Cocking (top photo) with 30 seconds left on the clock.
"We persevered and one thing I've been telling these kids all year is to believe in themselves," said Head Coach Joe Zambito, who notched his first win in his first official game at the helm. "It was something in previous years that they would get down and they would hang their hat and they just would quit. Today, they wouldn't quit and they kept coming back and they kept coming back and you know a lot of things didn't go our way today. But at the end of the day, we had the ball last and we were the last team to score and we made it happen."
Zambito said it was a team effort and many ways it was but Gabe McDonald had a special game, going for 210 yards on 23 carries leading to two touchdowns.
Tim Klotzbach was 12-21 and 147 yards at QB, tossing two TDs. He also had three interceptions.
His favorite target was Cocking, who had seven catches for 82 yards and that game-winning reception in the end zone.
The defense was lead by Lucas Calarco and Dakota Sica, who had nine tackles each. McDonald had seven and one interceptions.
There was little scoring in the first half and the Irish took an 8-0 lead into the locker room at the half. After the Redskins scored to make it 8-6, Zambito sensed his team was playing a little flat. He mentioned to a coach at that point that here they were with the lead but the team looked like they were losing.
"Bad habits are hard to break," Zambito said. "They've had two wins in two years and they're just not used to being the dominating team on the field. They're not used to being ahead. They're used to playing from way behind. I think that played a role in it but as the game went on I think they realized that we had a shot."
Zambito would like to keep the momentum going but Notre Dame gets an usual bye next week because Oakfield-Alabam/Elab dropped out of 11-man football just before the season started, leaving a hole in the schedule (O-A/Elba elected to play eight-man football). His team, he believes, that with day-by-day improvement, they do indeed have a shot at post-season play.
"Yeah, I think we've got a shot to get to sectionals," Zambito said. "I mean this Canisteo-Greenwood team is a good football team and obviously Alexander is just phenomenal. But I think we have a shot to get to sectionals and we know what do we have to do. We have to limit our turnovers we have to limit our penalties. Our mistakes. We have to play mistake-free football but then again we didn't do that today at all and we still managed to come out of here with a win. And it's all because they persevered."
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