CA FootBall 2008 Ready For Battle
On the
first day of football practice, Canandaigua started on the road to defense of
its Section 5 Championship Title.
The team, which advanced to the state playoffs
in 2007, has lost 17 of 22 starters.
Coach Dave Neiman said this is the
most starters he has ever lost as head coach.
He spent the first day of
practice evaluating players for for fitness and skill levels to determine what
might need to added into the team's workouts.
General
Neiman
Many Thanks to Steve & Barb Lacrosse
2008 War
& Peace Games
Click on Gen Neiman for more pictures
The McQuaid Jesuit Knights dodged Saturday's rainstorm, but
were unable to elude the big red machine, or the long arm of the Brave law —
Marshall Johnson.
“I am so proud of him,” said Dave Nieman, CA
head coach. “To be honest, we’re not even in this ball game without Marshall
Johnson. He’s a tremendous athlete, and a force to be reckoned with. He threw
and ran the ball very well today.”
In a see-saw gridiron battle right
down to the wire, the Brave’s out-jousted the Knights, 28-27 Saturday at Evans
Field in the season opener for both teams.
“I’m estatic about the win,”
Nieman said. “We’re the champions and we take a lot of pride in that. These kids
learned how to fight today. They fought and did exactly what they should have
done.”
Decked
in their cherry red tops, the Braves got on the board first on a Nick Michalko
10-yard scamper, following stellar lead blocking by senior Sean Regan. Joel
Stitt’s extra point boot put CA in front 7-0, with 2:43 left in the opening
quarter.
Michalko finished the day with 138 yards on 25 carries.
The Knights quickly responded, but were unable to match the tally of the Braves and had to settle for a 25-yard Pat Jenkins field goal kick, cutting their deficit to four at the10:30 mark in the second quarter.
Braves Defeat McQuaid
What’s the saying? Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow shall keep...the high school football fan away from his or her hometown team’s game.
OK, slight variation there, but that was the point Friday at Newark as despite rain before, during, and after the game between the Reds and the Braves, both stands and most of both sideline fences were full.
The visiting Braves, pulled out a hard-earned 33-6 win Friday.
With the inclement weather inhibiting every type of an offensive charge, the Braves won on the ground, led by Nick Michalko who ended the game with two touchdowns on 22 carries for 104 yards.
CAMDEN NY After a long bus ride, the
Canandaigua football team needed a quarter to work out the kinds. Once the
Braves got past a scoreless first quarter, they rolled to a 27-13 win over
Section 3's Camden Friday night.
"I'm really, really proud of my
kids right now," said CA coach Dave Nieman.
"To travel two and a half hours and get off the bus and play the way they did says a lot about this team's emotion and heart. Camden is a good, tough, physical team and to play them as we did after a trip like that was just great. I mean these kids got back after midnight Saturday morning and showed up to volunteer to help for a youth football practice at 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning. Just a great bunch of kids."
You Don't Want To Run Into These Guy's On A Saturday Night!
From left to right: #81 Matt Smith, #66 Robert Spedick, #55 Parker Hildreth, #65 Tom Tyler, #52 Nick Sabia, #61 Steven Wolfe
These Are The Guy's That Do The Heavy Lifting Up Front
Thank You Ca Linemen......You are the unsung heros that do a great job week in and week out.
We could not get far without your hard work and dedication. Thanks again, the CAFootball fans!
Braves Defeat Blue Raiders At Homecoming
The Horseheads Blue Raiders football team might have had a 1-3 record coming into their non-league match-up at Canandaigua Saturday afternoon, but the Braves knew better than to take them lightly.
Behind a solid defense that held six different Horseheads running backs to a total of just 100 yards, and in front of a packed homecoming day crowd, the Braves emerged victorious with a hard-earned 23-9 win at Evans Field.
“We knew they were a very tough team and they were going to come right at us,” said Dave Neiman, CA head coach. “They are a blue collar town and they play blue collar football and we knew we were going to have to be on our ‘A’ game today.
CA Rolls Past Wayne
Canandaigua Academy put on an impressive display at Evans Field Saturday afternoon, with both the offense and defense thoroughly dominating the line of scrimmage.
The unbeaten Braves beat the Wayne Eagles 48-0 in the Finger Lakes East game.
CA is 2-0 in the East, 4-0 overall, ranked 10th in the state in Class A and starting to look more and more like one of the teams to beat in Section 5.
“It’s tough to play against a team like Canandaigua that has a phenomenal tradition,” said Wayne coach David Marean. “It’s only our 11th varsity football season, and they’re almost double our size. They have so much more to pick from.”
The Braves led 34-0 at halftime, allowing coach Dave Nieman to play his reserves for most of the second half. Despite the lopsided score, he said his team still has work to do.
Wow! What A Game!
In what was supposed to be an offensive showdown Saturday night between two of the top teams in the Finger Lakes, Canandaigua Academy came up big in this Finger Lakes East game in a defensive struggle.
With a blocked field goal by Matt Smith and Nick King snuffing out the last chance for the Panthers, Geneva ended up losing in a heartbreaker once again to the Braves on Panther Homecoming Night, this time 14-13.
It was the second win in a row for the Braves on Geneva Homecoming Night.
“I’ll tell you what, these kids defensively battled all game long,” said Dave Neiman, CA head coach.
“Geneva is just outstanding offensively and for
us to hold them to 13 points is just incredible. Just a lot heart by our
kids.
The Slippery Rock Rockets jumped out to a 10-0 lead over the visiting Canandaigua Braves after the first quarter, and that proved to be the difference in the out-of-state non-league game Friday night as the two teams matched point-for-point in the final three quarters.
Jonathan Powell scored twice for the Rockets on runs of one and three yards with teammate Isaac
Braves Suffer Set Back In Slippery Rock Game 21-31
“We certainly didn’t play with the energy and emotion we needed to beat a good team like Slippery Rock,” lamented CA coach David Neiman. “They were extremely fundamentally sound in all phases of the games. They play the game like it was intended to be played.”
Nick Michalko led the Braves running attack carrying the ball 17 times for 77 yards. Johnson had eight carries for 23 yards and threw the ball 13-for-31 adding up to 172 yards and two touchdowns.
Champions prevail, and that’s exactly what the No. 3-seeded Canandaigua Braves did on mud-slicked Evans Field Saturday afternoon.
The Braves rallied for a 12-7 win over No. 6 Honeoye Falls-Lima in a Section 5 Class A quarterfinal football game.
Right from the start, it was evident that the Cougars (5-3) were fueled for an upset, the only question was how much gas was in their tank.
They opened with an onside kick and scored their first seven points just 1:28 into the opening stanza, but the disciplined Braves defense punched a hole in the Cougars’ gas tank, eventually emptying out any momentum the underdogs brought with them.
Things didn’t exactly go the way CA had planned, though.
Due to numerous turnovers because of the sloppy gridiron, the Braves failed to generate a first down through the opening quarter.
Braves Outlast HFL Cougars
In Mud Bowl
Ralph Calabrese followed the team from the sideline, clapping and breaking into a cheer every minute or two: “Here we go, Big Red!” or “Defense, yeah, intercept!” The game was well into the third quarter, but the Canandaigua resident showed no signs of slowing down.
“You gotta support our kids, right? Win, lose or draw, they’re the best,” he said. The sprightly Calabrese, who wore a faded Canandaigua Braves hat, is what you might call a loyal fan. He seldom misses a game, and when the Canandaigua Academy team plays out of town, they save him a seat on the team bus.
“Both teams are so great, it makes for an intense rivalry,” he said.
Ask anyone about that rivalry, and “intense” is likely to creep into the conversation. The passion was clear as the teams faced off in the Section 5 Class A semifinals at PAETEC Park. Though the Victor Blue Devils took a 35-7 victory over the Braves, many fans seemed to delight in the competition.
“It’s just fun to have that rivalry, because then you have something to go for, you know what I mean?” said DJ Natrigo, a junior at Victor Central High School.
Natrigo’s face was painted half yellow and half blue, her hair was molded into blue spikes, and a single strand of “gold” beads topped her jersey. She decks herself out for every game, she said, and for nearly every sport. Why does she do it?
“We can’t just let them go for a game without people being there to support them,” she said, somewhat incredulously.
While fans on both sides cited their superior “school spirit,” there were different opinions on what stoked the fierce rivalry. Kelly Condon, a Canandaigua senior, chalked it up to the similarities between the two schools.
The two Ontario County neighbors couldn’t be more different, she said. Victor is a more close-knit school, she said. Just look at the enthusiasm emanating from her paint- and costumed-bedecked classmates, she added.
The scoreboard may only tell part of the story. As Canandaigua senior Eric Moore said, it’s not all about winning.
“We have a strong passion for the game, and a rich tradition,” he said.