If Niagara Falls goes on a postseason run, it can point to the last two games as the reason why.
Over the last two weeks, the Wolverines won by a combined margin of 12 points and improved their record to 3-1 overall. A week after scraping past Niagara Wheatfield, Niagara Falls needed a comeback effort to survive a scrappy Lockport team.
After trailing 14-8 at halftime, the Wolverines were able to defend their home field with a 28-26 win over Lockport Saturday at the Wolverines’ Art Calandrelli Stadium. Four games into the season, Falls is one win shy of last season’s total.
“We get up. We get up now,” Niagara Falls head coach Don Bass said. “You can hit us, but we’re gonna get up. They’re fighters, they’re a scrappy bunch of fighters that I love about them. … I just want us to have a first TKO every now and then. I don’t want to go the distance all the time, I want a knockout.”
With approximately 45 seconds to go in the game, the Lions appeared to be sending the game to overtime when quarterback Scott Stowe scored a 60-yard touchdown run to bring his team to within two points at 28-26. However, his cousin, Wolverines quarterback and safety, Michael Taylor, had other ideas.
Just before flying off the edge to sack Stowe to end the game, Taylor told Bass before the two point-play that he knew what the Lions were going to call and he wanted to come in to play safety.
“It looked like the wide receiver was already leaning like he was running a route,” Taylor said. “I seen the free blitz. The running back went to the opposite side. I had a free sack. It was just wide open for a sack.”
Taylor and his teammates had to overcome an early hole when Taylor threw an interception on Falls’ first offensive play of the game with the Lions already up 8-0. The Wolverines were able to fight back later to bring it 8-6 on a 45-yard pass from Taylor to Smith.
Lockport (1-3) outgained Falls 142-111 in the first half, and although, Stowe had a pair of fumbles, the Lions offset them by picking up a pair of critical fourth-down conversions.
The hosts continued to trail until midway through the third quarter when they were able to take an 18-14 lead on an 18-yard Myking Dolson run.
Stowe tied the game at 20 on a 40-yard run, but Falls responded with another Dolson touchdown. His 15-yard run with 3:14 was the go-ahead score and then Taylor found Smith after faking a slant and Taylor hit him on an out for the two-point conversion, which proved to be the game-deciding points.
“I’m really proud of the boys,” Lockport head coach Trait Smith said. “They came back from last week. We had a lot of little things and we seemed to fix them, but it gives them a lot of energy when they can come back. I mean, Scott Sowe, he’s been a leader all year for us, doing that, what he’s done today. I can’t be sad.”
Bass said his team’s struggles with stopping the Lions today came down to not making Stowe’s life hard enough. Adjustments will be critical because the Falls starts a potential three-game stretch against Orchard Park Friday, followed by games against Class AA powers Lancaster and Jamestown.
“Our back end is fine but nobody can cover for five, six seconds,” Bass said. “Nobody. So we just gotta get more pressure up front. We’ll figure out how to do that, maybe bring in a few stunts or twists or something. But if we get more pressure up front, then we’ll be fine, cause we’re not big but we’re very fast. So if he (Stowe) got time playing in the back pocket back there, he’ll find somebody open because we’re just not big.”