Gallery

2025 Season Opener

SCHENECTADY — Schenectady’s 12-6 non-classification football win over Mohonasen on Friday night at Larry Mulvaney Field is the proverbial stone in the water.

The ripples might include young men standing a little taller, smiling more easily, and those are just two of the physical changes. The emotional ones may be even more important.

“They’ve now learned how to win,” Schenectady head coach Keith Pollizatto said.

The Patriots’ victory was their first since Sept. 9, 2023, when they topped Albany 26-12. Having endured an 0-10 record in Pollizatto’s first season last year, the Patriots rallied from an early 6-0 deficit and produced a pair of second-half scores to start the 2025 season.

You know, it’s our coach’s first win as a head coach. I know it means a lot to him, it means a lot to us,” said senior defensive end/offensive tackle Robert Jackson. “We did our best — it should’ve been more. We should have scored more, but, hey, we got the job done. We did what we had to do.”

What Schenectady did was take advantage of its opportunities. Unfortunately for Mohonasen, one of those opportunities was the loss of its primary running back, Xavier Perez-Tucker. The junior carried the ball eight of nine times in the game’s opening drive, including a 1-yard touchdown run. Three plays into the second quarter, he injured his left leg, grabbing for it even before he was fully down. He didn’t return to action, but finished with 11 carries for 128 yards and the score.

Schenectady held Mohonasen scoreless the rest of the half and opened the third quarter with an 85-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Ajani Jackson Bergin to tie the game at 6.

Fourth Quarter

In the fourth quarter, taking advantage of a short field after a crucial shared sack by sophomore Xzavion Jones and Jackson, Schenectady got a 23-yard run from Jones on his first carry of the night. Two plays later, quarterback Elijah Jackson found Deonte Raysor for a 5-yard screen pass, with Raysor fighting for the final yard into the end zone with 5:31 left.

Mohonasen earned four first downs on its final drive and got down to Schenectady’s 12, but Jackson, with added pressure from Marcus Williams, sacked the Mohonasen quarterback on the 25. The Patriots’ defense held for two more plays, and the home crowd got to do something it hasn’t been able to since Oct. 22, 2021 — experience a home-field win.

“I can’t get it done without my d-line guys; it’s not just a solo effort,” Jackson said. “I just knew we had to hold them. They’re in our territory, we’ve got to get a big stop, and I made it happen.”

“We worked hard all of last year, transitioning the first year, building up a culture,” Pollizatto said. “The kids were positive all night, their heads didn’t go down. Went down 6-nothing, they stayed the course. And then they came out in the second half, and the defense took over the game.”

Pollizatto said Jones was a difference-maker on both sides of the ball.

“I think he, personally, was the final nail as far as wearing down their defense a little bit,” he said. “That’s really what the game came down to: Who’s going to wear down first?”

Mohonasen coach John Gallo said his team entered the game with injuries, so losing Perez-Tucker was especially damaging.

“We do not have the type of depth at Mohonasen to withstand that type of injury, where you have to go three quarters of football, and now you’ve got your 10th-grade quarterback having to carry the ball [many] times,” Gallo said. “Listen, give the credit to Schenectady. They were advantageous when they needed to be. What I thought coming away, we hung in with a pretty big school. That’s tough sledding.

Five Linemen

“When I tell people we have five linemen, that’s what we have,” Gallo added. “There’s nobody going to come out from the stands and help us, so those kids, I thought, were warriors.”

Pollizatto knows one game doesn’t make a season, but he’ll happily take this.

“I think for a program that hasn’t had many wins in the column over the last decade, the kids, to be able to feel that on the scoreboard will mean something,” he said. “It’s tremendous and it will go a long way. We’ve still got a hill to climb, but for year two, I think we’re right where we’re supposed to be.”