Ballin' Out - Section 3 Football Athlete of the Week, Week 5

We had some viable options this week. A lot of guys put up some big-time numbers in their games. Unfortunately for most of them, we don't deal in the business of co-athletes of the week. We choose one. I can, however, deal in the business of honorable mentions - so I give a shoutout to Kyle Steiner of Beaver River, who straight killed it. His Class D Beavers took down Lowville, a tough C North squad who's got a lot of guys back from last year's team that made it to the C-2 final, by a score of 35-33. He finished with over 300 total yards on the day, between passing and rushing. He went 10/18 in the air, throwing for over 160 yards and a pair of touchdowns to Erik Lyndaker, and also carried the ball 19 times for 141 rushing yards and a pair of TDs of that fashion. That would normally be deserving of the athlete of the week...

But Jake Wittig isn't gonna be denied. And that's why he's the MVT Ballin' Out Athlete of the Week for Week 5 of the Section 3 football season. He handled his business... and everyone else's too. His Fayetteville-Manlius squad dismantled RFA in what looked like more of a blowout on the basketball court when you look at the score - 70-39. 56-19 at the half. That was a whole lot of the kid under center. Jake went off. He went 15/22 in the air for 494 yards and 5 passing touchdowns. Wittig didn't run much, but did score once on the ground - 4 carries, 34 yards. All of those TDs came in the 1st half - he threw for 2 in the 1st quarter, then threw for 3 more and ran for 1 in the 2nd. Started off with a 48 yard hookup with Luke Krizman, then added a 44 yard TD pass to Jack Wilson. He did it again to start the 2nd in that order - 17 yards to Krizman and the one that took the cake, a 95 yard connection with Wilson. He then added a 1 yard TD run, and finished the high-scoring half with a 10 yard touchdown pass to Paddy Quinlan. Mind you, he also went 10/10 kicking the extra points. And most of the fireworks came in just 24 minutes of action. Holy hell, try and beat that one. Some QBs in this section won't even throw for that much in a season. The Hornets are 5-0 so far, and that's got a lot to do with his 1,250 passing yards, 17 TDs, and solid completion percentage under center. The best thing? He's a junior, kids. Room to grow. Gotta love it. Congrats to Mr. Jake Wittig, who we decided was the cream of the crop in Section III over last Friday & Saturday!