By HUNTER O. LYLE
OLEAN, NY – Playing with postseason seeding on the line, the Olean football team dropped their second game in a row, closing out their regular season with a 22-15 loss to Lackawanna.
After their victory over Dunkirk in Week 5, the Huskies clinched their ticket to the Section VI playoffs, leaving their last two contests open to help them potentially earn home field advantage. However, the final two matchups came as uphill battles, playing Iroquois (then 5-1) and the Steelers (5-2 entering Friday.)
“We wanted to fight hard against two good football teams and give ourselves a chance in both games,” said Olean head coach Phil Vecchio. “The effort is there. They’re working hard and we’re going to eventually find ourselves on the right end of one of these close games.”
The first quarter feeling-out process took place in rapid succession, with both teams trading three-and-outs as they looked for openings downfield. On the fourth possession of the game, however, Olean broke things open.
Forcing a second-consecutive Steelers’ punt, the Huskies took over on their own 44-yard line. With the ground game yet to produce, they looked to the air, finding Adrian Bohdanowycz for 19 yards and Dom Myers for 23 soon after. Making their way down to the eleven yard line, quarterback Joe Mest called his own number, scrambling out of a broken play and into the endzone to put Olean on the board.
Seeing the ice broken, it wouldn’t take long for Lackawanna to begin to respond.
Giving the ball to their star running back Naseam Dahli, the Steelers quickly began moving the chains as they burst through the middle for yards in bunches. A 21-yard carry from Dahli put Lackawanna within 14 yards of the endzone, but Olean’s defense held strong. Despite giving up three combined yards on the next two snaps, a massive sack from Olean’s Hunter Silvis ended the first quarter by sending the Steelers backwards eleven yards. Rolling over into the second, Lackawanna couldn’t recover, suffering a false start and subsequent incomplete pass that caused a turnover on downs in the redzone.
Although they earned a hard fought stop, Olean couldn’t double-down on their newfound lead. Unable to get significant reach on the ground or open targets through the air, along with a sack that produced a fourth-and-14, the Huskies failed to cross midfield. Then the Steelers broke through in earnest.
Continuing to give the ball to their running backs, Lackawanna bruised and bashed their way through Olean’s trenches. Earning yards by tooth-and-nail, they crawled up the field. Eventually landing on the five-yard-line, Dahli earned his fifth touchdown of the season with a crash through the plane. And with the score, the Steelers firmly stole the momentum.
Olean continued to sputter from then on, including on the ensuing kickoff where they allowed Lackawanna to recover the ball and set up on their own 14-yard line. Luckily for the Huskies, they took back possession after Caine DeGolier recovered a fumble, but still Olean couldn’t find their footing. Throughout their final two drives of the half, Olean was forced off the field without a first down, a problem that persisted into the third quarter.
Meanwhile, the Steelers fired out of the break as sharp as ever. Whereas they earned just six first downs in the first half, Lackawanna’s first drive of the second saw the Steelers move the chains five times as their run game continuously punched holes through the defense en route to their second touchdown of the game.
“(Lackawanna) started to get us in the second quarter. They found a spot and credit to them, a lot of coaches will try to do something different but they kept with it and kept running it,” said Vecchio. “We just didn’t have an answer for it.”
Despite being unable to cross the field on offense, Olean’s found themselves with several chances. They would earn back-to-back turnovers on the next two drives, first by Silvis who chased down a Steeler with nothing but the endzone in front of him, punching the ball loose for a touchback before Finn Caya jumped on top of a second fumble on Lackawanna’s next possession.
Still, the Huskies weren’t able to capitalize. With their run game unable to garner yards beyond the line of scrimmage and their receivers struggling to contend with the cold and wet conditions, Olean stalled out time and time again.
“We couldn’t make a play on all three phases. Offensively, it felt like we had the ball a lot but we just couldn’t sustain a drive. Defensively, we couldn’t stop them all night,” said Vecchio. “It was frustrating for sure.”
Their ultimate nail in the coffin came in the fourth, when the Steelers came away with an interception before converting on a fourth-and-26 pass play that put them on the Huskies’ one-yard line. One snap later, Olean looked up at a 22-7 deficit.
As the clock began to empty, the Huskies found one last successful drive. Taking over on Lackawanna’s 44-yard line after another fumble recovered by Caya, Mest connected with Myers for a 35-yard reception before he took it upon himself once again to reach the endzone. Scrambling out of the pocket, Mest carried the ball nine yards to the right pylon to cut the lead to just five. However, the spark came just a hair too late. Lining up in victory formation, the Steelers burned the remaining 28 seconds off the clock with one final kneel.
Mest led the Huskies with 30 rushing yards on seven carries, reaching the endzone twice while also completing 12 of his 29 attempts through the air for 129 passing yards. Myers ended with 67 receiving yards on five receptions while Domonick Hirliman came away with 29 rushing yards on eight touches.
Ending their regular season at 4-4, Olean enters the Section VI Class B bracket as the fourth seed. Their postseason push begins next Friday, where they will travel to face Williamsville South.
“I hate to simplify it but we just need to make the plays when we need them. All year long, we’re giving up third-and-nines, third-and-12s. If we make those stops, who knows?” said Vecchio. “We’re not making the plays at the time we need to make plays.”
