The Fredonia Hillbillies entered Week 5 of the high school football season with a 1-3 record, giving up 28 points per game. On Friday, the defense turned in its best effort of the season thus far and got plenty of support from the offense. In a game broadcast on WDOE, Fredonia took advantage of key mistakes in the first half and blew out Olean by a score of 38-12 at Bradner Stadium to improve to 2-3 and move into second place in Class B South. The Billies scored four touchdowns in the first half, with two of them as a result of short fields after special teams miscues by the Huskies. Damian Johnson opened the scoring with a 3-yard touchdown run, two plays after a bad snap on an Olean punt. The two-point conversion by Jiovany Ruiz made the score 8-0. Olean responded with its biggest play of the night, as Elijah Ramadhan ran for a 66-yard touchdown on a jet sweep to make the score 8-6. Fredonia senior quarterback Jiovany Ruiz gave his team a comfortable lead at halftime after scoring a pair of touchdowns on runs of 6 and 2 yards, the second coming after another bad snap on an Olean punt. Ruiz was named WDOE's Player of the Game, as he ran for 103 yards and threw for 134 yards, and scored two touchdowns and three two-point conversions. In the second half, another Fredonia senior, Michael Pucci, took over. After being held to 24 yards rushing in the first half, Pucci found the holes in the second half, as he scored on runs of 27 and 12 yards. Pucci finished the game with 18 carries for 124 yards and led the team defensively with seven tackles. The Billies dominated both sides of the ball, outgaining the Huskies 425 yards to 147.
Fredonia has Week 6 off, and now has two weeks to prepare for its annual rivalry game with Dunkirk. The Marauders lost to Springville on Friday, 22-6.
Photo by the Olean Times Herald
