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Beyond The Keystone: New York (Week 5)

Tagged under: Beyond The Keystone

| September 24, 2018

As I’ve pointed out in the past, is that New York’s NYSPHSAA has a rather embracing policy of co-ops. Something which Ohio is entirely opposed and much more ‘public’ about it than Pennsylvania.

In PA, where a co-op only gets listed by the ‘host’ school, except in cases where the school itself wants to make it known, such as USO in Pittsburgh, or the two District 9 co-ops: Union/ACV or Ridgway/Johnsonburg, the state still only recognizes the host, officially. In New York, as I had pointed out a few weeks earlier, lists all teams in the co-op. Including CSP, which is the three small schools in the far southwest corner of the state.

That brings us to Saturday Night’s game. Chautauqua Lake/Westfield is a co-op between the two schools. For several years, Chautauqua Lake had formed a co-op with Maple Grove, located at the far end of their namesake lake. However, Maple Grove had seen enough enrollment growth to operate a team independently. This meant that Chautauqua Lake was in search of a new partner. Westfield, located along Lake Erie and the New York Thruway had previously co-oped with Brocton, a few miles up the lakeshore. Brocton, though, had now co-oped with Fredonia. This left Westfield too small to form a class D team, but would be in search of a partner. So, Chautauqua Lake and Westfield combined to form Chautauqua Lake/Westfield. With games hosted at Chautauqua Lake’s campus in Mayville. A small, modern, stadium located behind the school on the hill northwest of town.

Their opponent was Randolph/Frewsburg. Randolph was three-time state champions in Class D just recently, but numbers had dropped since. And Frewsburg, the Bears, were on the verge of cancelling their 2017 season. An emergency co-op was granted between Randolph and Frewsburg to get through the year. The partnership has continued. IT has bumped them up to Class C. Which has left Class D with only 4 teams in the latest cycle.

Unlike other co-ops, both teams in this matchup kept their nicknames. When Chautauqua Lake and Maple Grove co-oped, the MGCL Thunder Dragons were born out of the Thunderbirds and Red Dragons nicknames. However, Westfield had no bearing on Chautauqua Lake’s uniforms, nickname, etc. Randolph remained the Cardinals, but with the left side of their helmet having a black F blazoned across it rather than another red R.

Despite the Cardinals being clearly the better team, the Thunderbirds kept it interesting through the first twelve minutes. But little things kept them from being able to really step up and compete.

Halftime offered one of the most picturesque sunsets I’ve seen at a game (pictured above). Combined with the stadium on a hill with a clear view of the west, the clouds, and being a few miles east of Lake Erie providing an excellent mirror, the underside of the clouds lit up like a surrealist painting.

But, over time, even Chautauqua Lake’s fourth quarter TD wasn’t enough to really make a dent in Randolph’s lead. The Cardinals held off the remaining 8:30 and won easily, 41-19.

The stadium itself in Mayville may be small, but one of the nicest ones you’ll find. Concrete with entry from the top. The two-story concession/restroom building includes a maintenance building on the first floor at track level. This creates a balcony that looks out over the field on both ends of the building. Complete with picnic tables on the raised platform for those to eat at before returning to their seats. This seemed to be a favored place for fans to mingle during the game. The visiting fans had a very small bleacher set up beyond the far side of the track.With no formal separation between the stands and the field other than walking across the track.

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