West Canada Valley tunes up for league play with 46-0 victory on football scrimmage day
NEWPORT - West Canada Valley took a different approach to its final preparations for a new season Saturday and put a 1 in the win column with a 46-0 Week Zero victory over Ticonderoga.
"We're supposed to be scrimmaging today," West Canada Valley coach Todd Hobin said. "Somehow we put this together and put that many points on the board."
More: Mt. Markham wins big on opening night of Mohawk Valley football season
More: Section 3 football's top Week Zero football players and games from Friday
Hobin's squad plays home games the next two weeks against New York Mills and Frankfort-Schuyler, the teams with which West Canada Valley shared a league title last fall, and the coach wanted a more typical game styled test for his team than a traditional scrimmage provides.
"I kind of wanted to commit to a game," Hobin said. "I wanted to go into these next two games with game experience behind us."
New York Mills plays its first game next week at West Canada Valley. Frankfort-Schuyler, the Sept. 16 opponent, hosted a multi-team scrimmage Saturday morning.
West Canada Valley led 8-0 after the first quarter and 24-0 at halftime. Sean Burdick, a senior starting a quarterback for the first time, threw three touchdown passes and ran for two scores as the offense worked through wrinkles it will need to smooth out in practice, including three turnovers. Burdick, who completed eight of 11 passes for 200 yards, also passed for two-point conversions after each of the first half touchdowns and ran for one in the second half.
Ticonderoga took the ball to start the game and turned it over. West Canada Valley drove 72 yards on its first possession after a Burdick interception and the quarterback ran three yards for a touchdown at the end.
Jarrett Brelinsky ran eight yards for a touchdown in the second quarter and West Canada Valley's two-minute offense added a score before halftime; Iain Farber tackled Ticonderoga's Landon Smith on a fake punt and West Canada Valley took possession at its on 44-yard line with 1:47 on the clock. Two Burdick passes produced an interference call and a first down before he connected with John Tubia for a 12-yard touchdown at the 40.4-second mark.
The pace continued at the start of the second half. West Canada Valley took the kickoff and scored less than two minutes later with a 35-yard Burdick-to-Farber pass play. Burdick ran a sneak for a touchdown a short time later on the play after Brelinsky was tripped short of the goal line after a 45-yard run, and Farber capped the scoring with a 58-yard touchdown reception late in the third quarter with the clock running.
Farber had four catches for 133 yards. Brelinsky had 89 of West Canada Valley's 279 rushing yards, and Camerohn Ludwig had six carries for 61 yards and three receptions for 55.
The West Canada Valley defense performed well in the shutout, the program's fourth in eight-player competition. Sophomore Dominic DiFillippo sacked Ticonderoga quarterback Tommy Montalbano multiple times with Tubia and Blake Reese, two veterans, in on 11 and nine tackles, respectively.
Ticonderoga is competing as an eight-player team for the first time and is the only team of its kind in Section VII. The Sentinels have been able to schedule five games this fall, the closest being a home-and-home series with Section X Tupper Lake 83 miles away. Saturday's trip from the Champlain Valley to the Kuyahoora Valley covered 125 miles each way.
The Sentinels were Class D finalists in the 2007 and 2015 state playoffs. West Canada Valley won the Class D championship in 1997; Ticonderoga was beaten in the finals by Walton and Tioga from Section IV.West Canada Valley made the switch from 11 players to eight in 2018.
This article originally appeared on Times Telegram: West Canada Valley starts football season at home against Ticonderoga
