Syracuse Strong: Complete team win delivers 3-0 start to 2019 season

The Syracuse Strong is perfect after 3 weeks of play. Here’s how the Strong were able to continue their record-breaking winning streak on Saturday.

For the first time this season, the Syracuse Strong played a complete game. No, I mean that literally, in the first two weeks of the Strong’s season the games were called early in the third quarter due to lightning/safety issues.

In other words, Syracuse played all four quarters for the first time in Week 3, or so we thought?

Before the game kicked off at the Valley Sports Complex there was a scoreboard malfunction so the referees had to keep track of the game old school style. Unfortunately, that made it quite difficult to keep track of the score or time in the press box during the game, so to our knowledge, the game was four full quarters *shoulder shrug*.

But Mother Nature didn’t impede the game for the first time in 2019, the sun was shining bright on the field and it was subsequently the hottest game of the season.

The heat clearly got to the players on the field early and often in this one both on and off the field. After a Jeff McDuffie interception gave the Strong good field position, it seemed like Syracuse was going to put the first points on the board, but it wasn’t meant to be.

After No. 17 Nic Barksdale caught a pass over the middle he was lunging for the endzone when he got stripped of the ball. That led to some jeering from his teammates that he didn’t appreciate and things got chippy on the sideline.

That seemed to affect the entire mood of the team as we trudged through the first half. Syracuse looked lackadaisical, unfocused, and vulnerable. The Strong suffered from an inordinate amount of penalties in this one primarily coming via encroachment/offsides calls due to the Upstate Predators hard counts at the line of scrimmage.

On the offensive side of the ball, Syracuse tried running the ball with Rashad Burns to no avail for the majority of this game. Burns ended up finishing the game with 12 attempts for 31 yards, owning a 2.6 yards per clip advantage. A far cry from his Week 1 performance where he rumbled for 96 yards and three touchdowns.

Then we reached one of the major pivot points in this game, Jason Boltus held the ball far too long late in the second quarter and was strip-sacked which gave the Predators great field position. The Strong defense stepped up to the plate.

It was the quintessential “bend but don’t break” defense in Week 3.

Time after time, the Upstate Predators of Rochester had great field position due to turnovers or great offense, and the Syracuse defense stood strong.

The final tally was 21-0 for a Strong victory, it was the first shutout of the season for Syracuse.

Here were the major highlights in this one:

• QB, Jason Boltus was 14-of-22 for 255 yards two touchdowns and one interception.
• WR, Joshua Thomas caught five receptions for 85 yards and a touchdown (64-yarder).
• WR, LaQuan Rouse aka LA finished with three receptions for 77 yards and a touchdown (55-yarder).
• LB, Elbert Maeweather had five solo tackles, one tackle for loss, and two huge forced fumbles.
• DB, Kelvin White pulled in an interception.
• DB, Jeff McDuffie also reeled in an interception.

Up next for the Strong is their first road trip of the season vs the Lockport Wildcats. Syracuse won’t return to the Valley Sports Complex until the end of June.