Live from Grand Island's win at Will South (in the rain and on video)

Below is my live blog from the instant-classic, 23-20 victory by Grand Island at Williamsville South Friday night.

It includes videos that I added later. Some of my comments -- the ones entirely in bold -- I added later as well.

* * *

Hello from a very, very wet press box and field at Williamsville South, where the Billies host Grand Island in a big-time Section VI quarterfinal in Class A.

6:57 p.m. This will be interesting. I have the laptop on my lap (go figure) because the rain is coming in the front windows of the press box. I need to see out the window, so we'll just deal with it. Not sure how I'll keep notes too. Should be fun :-)

7:04 p.m. We've kicked off and GI takes over at its 33.

7:05 p.m. Will South standout quarterback Joe Licata is warming up on the sideline with two kids nearby drying balls off with towels.

7:07 p.m. After a punt by GI's Joel Klock and a good roll, South takes over at its 20.

7:12 p.m. Grand Island stops Will South on a fourth-and-3 from its 38 as Licata hits Coppola in the left flat but GI swarmed him and takes over at its 36 (below).

7:17 p.m. Grand Island scores a TOUCHDOWN on a huge passing play from quarterback Joel Klock to Pat Gallagher, who ran a crossing route from the left side, receiving the ball over the middle and ran down the right sideline for the score. Two South defenders appeared they may have collided during the pattern. Nate Benoit hits a low, hard extra point up and through and GI has a 7-0 lead.

7:24 p.m. Will South on a nice drive, which started at its 25. Tyler Krempa had a 43-yard run to give South a first-and-goal and it faces a fourth down at the 6.

7:26 p.m. On fourth-and-goal, South initially set up in field goal formation, then spread out and called timeout. South then came out in a normal formation and Licata hit Krempa on the right side for a TOUCHDOWN to cut the Grand Island lead to 7-6. Krempa's extra point attempt was hit well but was apparently wide right.

7:32 p.m. We are at the END OF THE FIRST QUARTER and Grand Island has its 7-6 lead and faces a fourth-and-2 at the Will South 12. GI appeared to fumble the last play and South appeared to come up with the ball, but officials gave the ball to GI. GI came out to run the crucial play but coach Dean Santorio called a timeout.

7:38 p.m. That fourth down play was indeed crucial -- Dillon Gallagher of South reached up and plucked a screen pass for an interception he returned all the way to the GI 11 (below).

South couldn't convert, however, as Licata just missed connecting with Coppola on third down and Stasiak on fourth (below).

7:47 p.m. GI took over on its 10 on the ensuing possession but punted (a good one by Klock); South took over at its own 18 and would punt from its 33; Grand Island takes over at its 30.

7:51 p.m. GI calls a timeout with 3:23 left in the second quarter facing a third-and-4 at the South 42. 

8:07 p.m. We are at HALFTIME and Grand Island leads Williamsville South, 7-6.

The last thing we saw was potentially very bad news for South: Licata was down for a good minute or two after the final play of the half -- an incomplete heave by Licata from his own 30 -- and he limped off the field for the halftime break. 

An update since the 7:51 posting: GI had to punt but Klock unleashed another nice one to pin South at its own 2; South went three and out and Licata's punt rolled to South's 31. GI couldn't cash in on the possession, as a 34-yard field goal attempt missed badly in the rainy, muddy conditions. South took over and didn't move much in three plays, the last of which might be very painful if Licata is hurt.

8:26 p.m. We're back with the second half -- GI kicked off a grounder that was tricky but reeled in by South. Licata appears to still be limping.

8:28 p.m. South's first drive is a three and out. Licata's punt leaves GI to set up at its own 30. This a one-point game but it doesn't feel like it right now.

8:36 p.m. South takes over at its 12 after Grand Island's possession fizzles -- a big part of that was a big sack by Krempa that put GI in a third-and-18 after a second-and-8. 

8:41 p.m. South scores a TOUCHDOWN to take the lead, 12-7. On first down at the Grand Island 40, Krempa took a handoff to the left side, followed some blocks for a nice gain, then did some seriously nice cutbacks as he went the distance for the touchdown. He alternately sped up and put on the brakes on some cutbacks, then sped down the left sideline. Krempa couldn't run it in up the middle on the two-point conversion, however.

8:46 p.m. Grand Island has answered very nicely with a TOUCHDOWN with 57 seconds left in the third quarter. On first-and-goal at the 6, Lalonde bulled and churned his way to the end zone, following his line and then pushing it forward as he worked his way over the goal line (below).

The two-point conversion fails (below) when Michael Lang drags down Lalonde. Grand Island leads, 13-12.

8:49 p.m. South takes a timeout before its first play, a first down at its 34 with 52 seconds left in the third. That could prove costly -- the only good news for South is that GI had to spend a timeout before its conversion attempt.

8:53 p.m. At the END OF THE THIRD QUARTER, Grand Island has a 13-12 lead at Williamsville South.

8:56 p.m. We have quite the game here. Williamsville South now leads, 20-13. Coppola took an end around from the left side and sped to open space on the right, making a sweet cutback inside the 5 to gain the end zone with 11:53 left in the fourth.

9:09 p.m. We have a tie game: Grand Island 20, Williamsville South 20. Lalonde finished off a long, impressive drive with a 2-yard run with 6:47 left in the game -- or should I say regulation.

Here's part of what made the drive impressive -- a third-and-10 pass from Klock to Pat Gallagher.

Here's another -- a 16-yard pass to Gallagher that gave GI a first-and-goal at the 6.

And here's LaLonde's TD run.

And here's Benoit's solid PAT kick to tie the game.

9:26 p.m. What a game. Too much going on for updates. There is 43 seconds left in regulation and GI faces a fourth-and-8 at the Will South 46. 

Below is the muffed punt that was recovered by LaLonde to set GI up at the South 48 with 1:25 left. Sorry about the poor audio. I think my hand was covering the microphone. 

Below is the outstanding fourth-and-8 pass by Klock to Steve Vitello.

Below is another outstanding throw by Klock, I believe again to Vitello. Play-by-play -- on this and many other plays -- brought to you by WGR's Brian Koziol.

9:30 p.m. Grand Island's Nate Benoit just kicked a 42-yard FIELD GOAL -- in the rain! -- to put Grand Island up, 23-20, with :07 on the clock. Unbelievable.

9:37 p.m. We have a FINAL SCORE: Grand Island 23, Williamsville South 20.

A zany finish which included a penalty after South tried a crazy lateral-filled play on its final play. A flag was thrown on Grand Island for too many men on the field. South got one final play from the Grand Island 31, and Licata got off a heave to an apparently open Coppola in the end zone. Defenders flocked to Coppola, and it appeared that there may have been contact in the end zone -- but there was no flag. South fans and players were protesting in a major way but there was no penalty. The rain picked up and Grand Island celebrated.

Time for a lot of work for me. More to come.

* * *

Below is South's lateral play. You can hear the horn sound early in the play. The official on the right throws the flag after players came off the sideline. I think I counted eight or nine laterals. The video is 55 seconds and the play was nearly as long.

Below is the announcement of the penalty. I edited the video down. It took a while.

Below is the final play of the game, which occurs in the far side of the end zone, but you can certainly hear several people in the South press box react ("interference!") the same way the South sideline reacted, and you see coach Kraig Kurzanski head towards the officials as they walked off the field.

* * *

Klock on the end of the game

An interview with Benoit after the game -- in the rain, by the bus. It's "pretty cool."

* * *

Here is a photo gallery from the game by The News' Mark Mulville.

* * *

Here's my story on the game, which includes video interviews. 

---Keith McShea

Comments

[Jigga]

Will south cries about every call. Get over it clearly you cant match up with strong A teams like GI, Iroquois, Sweethome, and Hamburg.

[Milt Latimer]

whatever pattern he was running, I have yet to see anyone dispute my observation that he knocked over the GI defender near the goal line! Flag, Post, what ever...in my days, it was a "3" route. Maybe South called it a concession stand route. If we were drawing the plays up in the dirt, we're drawing a straight line, and angleing up to the left. :-)

[smh]

milt a long post to the left corner??? last time i checked a post was always ran to THE POST hence the name..while runing to the corner is a flag route ran to the flag in the back corner hence the name flag. again milt you all impress us with you knowledge of football

[Alden]

In regards to bulldogs#1. To let everyone know, he is not a member of the team or even a fan. The fact that someone would post that to make us look bad is pretty funny. Probably trying to give their own team something to post in the lockerroom? But hey our team and fans have talked before so other bloggers believe it. Goodluck to all teams in the playoffs.

[Milt Latimer]

Here's what I see on Keith's "Zapruder film"...Coppola is lined up slot/wing right. He is going to run a long post pattern to the left corner of the endzone. Around the 15 yd line (7 sec), he bumps slightly with a GI defender in the middle of the field. After running by him, he continues towards the corner. Near the goalline, he makes contact with another GI defender knocking him down (possibly shoving him in the back?). One can see the kid, who was playing that deep third of the zone go to the ground. A player running back on defense then takes Coppola out as the ball is arriving at the endzone. It looks like the GI center field safety runs over to make a play on the ball. Potential Offensive Pass Interference on Coppola for hitting their safety, and potential Defensive Pass Interference on GI player coming back to hit Coppola.

[ca aka cc]

Milt - I love your insight on this blog...but let's be honest, there is no way you're trying to make a point about possible offensive pass interference on the last play if that had happened to Iroquois. Also, I watched the same video you did and you can't see what happened. However, I was there, standing at the goal line (you can see my yellow poncho in the video) and it was a brutal no call.

There is no way to ever know if the outcome would have been different, but a penalty would have given South the ball on the 16 yard line with one last chance.

I thought GI deserved the win either way because the game was over had it not been for the players pouring on to the field in celebration (which forced the flag for too many men)when the ever-lasting lateral play appeared over.

I thought going for two in the third quarter up 13-12 was a terrible decision. If GI kicks the PAT then, the final TD puts them up 21-20.

Overall, an awesome game to be at with a seriously clutch FG by Benoit to win the game (earlier, he had attempted one that barely left the ground).

Kloc was very impressive and made plays when his team needed them and Lalonde ran the ball hard. Thought Krempa and Copolla played their guts out in defeat.

[Milt Latimer]

A couple thoughts on certain officiating calls that have been discussed.

If anything, maybe there should have been pass interference called in the South-GI game, On both teams!! As I'm viewing the video, Coppola knocks over a GI defender just before getting hit himself by another player. Not sure how the rules would then be assessed. Would the play be a "do over" or does an offensive penalty with no time on the clock mean no "do over" play could occur?

I had to laugh at the caller on the WGR Inside HS Sports show who claimed the reason West Seneca East didn't get a first down on a crucial 4th down was because the chain crew was holding the stick at a bad angle. Kinda hard to make a call with a credit card with the sticks at that extreme of an angle. This caller was probably the same individual that that berated the officials on the sideline to draw a flag. I'm just curious why a 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalty wasn't assessed? Why throw the flag? Officials took alot of care to get that call right.

[eddy]

Well SW did make a mockery out of lackawana and lackawana beat you so any football person would say that SW would pretty much blow Alden out. What does that say for class B?

[Keith McShea]

Appreciate the kind words, OBC.

There are a bunch of videos posted with the GI story as well as on this entry now. YouTube seems to be down at the moment, but they're up there, I swear.

I had literally 10 minutes to talk to GI guys by the bus (always go to where you know they'll show up) -- iPhone in one hand, umbrella in the other -- then I scrambled to my car and wrote my story on my laptop from the driver's seat. Thankfully I had a towel in the trunk to dry my hands off (hard to type otherwise) as well as a trusty Mexican blanket to put between my drenched jeans and my laptop.

Just another day on the high school beat :-)

[Milt Latimer]

Some thoughts on friday night:

It was wet out there tonight, everyone had to take care of the ball as priority number uno.

I'm wondering who has inside track of Coach of the Week? McFadden for Hamburg's first ever playoff win since they started the sectional playoffs? Tony Osburn of Albion for an upset over Lackawanna in the week when his father-in-law, and former Medina coach Larry Decker passes away? Or maybe Coach Dimunico of Alden for win over Depew? Coach Shifflet might get consideration if Will East beats Newfane in a Bowl game, his 200th of his career.

A nice defensive shutout for Lancaster after last week's shootout, they'll need solid defense to contain either Fluellen or Monroe next week

Last week, South fans were furious that there were only four officials, now this week five didn't help them. Maybe if there were four, the officials would have been further away from the Hail Mary and called interference from a different perspective. Maybe six officials should be scheduled for their games? seven?

NT sure looked impressive over Frontier, even without All-WNY Aaron Davis. OP has disciplined defense...that should be a war.

Five of the last seven Class A champions have been decided by the winner of the Sweet Home vs Iroquois game. Assuming SH wins today (duh), could it be 6 of 8?

Class D is setting nice for the Semis.

Milt has some washing to do. Made the mistake of hanging near the bench after a mudsoaked victory. Shaking hands with BIG 290 lbs C/DT Jeff Sley's mitts will get one muddy, especially after players confused the field with a slip and slide.

[freethrow]

Another thing is that south should have came to play harder and better because the way i think of it is if you can beat a team early in the season u should be able to do it again. i knew grandisland wud play really good because of their streak but i figured South wud keep a cusion cuz of their "stadium" talking.Maybe weather was a factor because i was waiting to see when was South gonna unleash that blazeing passing attack but it seemed like they cud get nothing going and had to do the 3 and out game all night and i figured thats what grand island wanted because they knew if they slowed the game down they cud take it because they knew if it was fast paced like back and forth or something like that they wud lose in a game like that. Becaus ei believe south is one of the best teams at outscoring opponents in high scoring game. its kinda like Canadaguia and orchard park game two years ago. if you watch that game then you know what im talking about.

[freethrow]

OK guys listen its a freedom of speech blog so if bulldog wants to mouth off about the win then let him do that cuz he has the right. but please dont say he shouldnt be bragging about a win because member in this game if ur gonna run ur mouth as long as u can u better be winning. its just a matter of time before a team loses and the blogs get quietter. and at the same time i remember there being talk about Alden not being the team they were "thought" to be just cuz they lost to EA and Lackawanna member (aldens a joke?) Well as much as they said in their post is as much these fans will receive in bulldogs post. I am %100 neutral and are just stating the facts.

Also i wanna talk about the last play by will south. Ok so that call was a little questionable but at the same time u gotta look at it this way. u cant rely on the refs to win u a game (honestly) Listen south, refs will always miss horrible calls and will make horrible calls but when it comes to the game on the line u either do it or u dont and cant rely on refs cuz they most likely will mess up. u never no wen its coming u just have to be prepared for it. Ive seen worse cases then that where a ref didnt call it. ive seen bigger things on the line then a first round game ive seen state championships on the line where the ref missed an obvious call that wud have definately changed the outcome of the game. So i dont want u to feel targeted because WNY officials have tiresome jobs and i believe they may not do the best job but they get the job done. if anybody feels its still wrong then you should direct ur future planning to become a WNY ref.

[The OBC]

Keith:

I would hope that most readers of this blog realize the level of professionalism you bring to the job. Your doing video interviews in front of the Grand Island bus in the sideways rain was classic. Another off-the-charts game between these two schools.

Grand Island, Iroquois, and Sweet Home (most likely) in yet another Class A semi-final (sixth time in nine years for those three schools together) along with Hamburg, a little 2005 deja vu.

[South]

How was there a no call on the last play of the South v GI game. Both refs looked at each other and neither wanted to make a call. SO they both waved incomplete. How is tackling a wide receiver while the ball is in the air legal. That is now 2 strait games where calls have been blown against South on final minutes of game. Is it a National thing with these refs

[bulldogs#1]

if anyone wonders how we could have lost a game this year then just read alden fans comment that southwestern would smash us? not a chance. i hope you are a fan and not someone on my team sayin stuff like that. if people dont like what im saying then too bad. im not afraid to say it like it is and back it up on the field

[On Looker]

wow bulldogs#1 thats pretty pathetic, congratulations on the win over a strong depew team, but let everyone else talk about it... im disgusted by your comments.

[alden fan]

bulldogs #1 shut up. let your play speak for itself. keep talking and thats why we get no respect. and fyi southwestern would absolutely smash us. im starting to think your not even on our team. ea maryvale whoever, its going to be tough. get game guys. stoldt, peel, barczykowski were awesome tonight. the team took depews best shot and we stood tall. next week is another big one. cant talk unless you have been there. ask us the players what happened last year when they were all running there mouths about fredonia, they came into our house and flattened us. good luck to ea and maryvale.

[bulldogs#1]

another thing since we just smashed depew who almost beat lancaster (undefeated and beat state champ OP) we better get some first place votes this week instead of southwestrn who only plays weak c teams. there lucky they would never have to play us!

[WillSouthFan]

Krempa is the heart and soul of the Williamsville South Team. Another unbelievable performance by the unheralded #2.
The no call at the end game by the refs was ridiculous.
Grand island's QB outplayed average Joe Licata.
Winning kick in the rain was clutch.
Damn weather.......

[bulldogs#1]

just like I garanteed we would we smashed depew in there crib on there turf. told you the ea game was a fluke and now IF they win tommorrow we will punch them right in the mouth this time on our way to winning the b championship at the stadium. hope we play albion there so we can beat coaches old team. no way any team from around here beats us this year and its time to start thinkin bout states. ALDEN BULLDOGS WILL BE CHAMPS IN 2009 GARANTEED!!!!!!!

[HCup Fan]

Great Game at Will South. GI made some great special teams plays. Worst NO Call Pass Interfence Ive ever seen. The officials stunk all around. And I watch alot of Harvard Cup games so thats saying alot.

[Milt Latimer]

Some Section V scores:

AA Schroeder over East 28-0, Gates over Brockport 21-7

A McQuaid over Arcadia 41-7, Victor over Canandaigua 6-0, Ather over HF-L 31-13

B A couple upsets...Livonia over Pal-mac 13-6, Newark over Midlakes 14-0, and Hornell over ER/Gananda 29-6

C Big UPSET Wellsville over Kearney 33-14, Letchworth over Way-Co 19-6, Attica over S.Seneca 28-0

D all games are on Saturday

[Greg]

Lancaster 12, Niagara Falls 0

[Matt]

NT beat Frontier 40-13

[Pooch]

Does anyone have the Lancaster and Niagra Falls game?

[freethrow]

oh wow thought alden was washed up and had excuses for losing even tho they just sent home the predicted winner of the game and possibly class b. i bet aldens a joke is slapping his keyboard right now

[Fan]

Anyone know the NT score?

[hunter]

alden knocks off depew 26 to 13

[Milt Latimer]

Iroquois 21 West Seneca East 7

Jimmy Kloc had around 100 and 2 TDs in the rain and mud. Key swing of events in the game...Iroquois stopped WSE on a 4th and 2 from its own 6, while leading 14-7. After trading some punts, Cal Sluberski had a long punt return to get into WSE territory before the final TD.

[justfootball]

What happened in the Iroquois game?

[Gallagher]

good to see Will South go down in the first round.
congrats Grand Island ,great game

[MikeyJ]

SW 34 to 0. Start of fourth quarter.

[Blaise O'Connor]

One sided affair at Portville. Portville is all over West Valley 45-0, midway through the thiord quarter.

[class b]

What do you think about a SW and Clevhill matchup. That would be a good game to watch. Clevhill has the size and strength to take them down but they have to beat Fredonia first.

[Wildcat]

keep them depew updates commin...outta town wish I could be there!

[Hollywood]

End of 1st
Depew 7 Alden 0

[Hollywood]

Im at Depew and will keep posting.ANYONE AT cheektowaga? Lancaster? IROQUOIS? RANDOLPH NT,OP, lackawanna,southwestern Depew recovered an Alden fumble deep in their territory and Emannuel ran a sweep to paydirt from the 15, pat good Depew 7-0