Cicero-North Syracuse's second-year football coach Jim Ryan knew replacing his all-state running back Anthony Johnson from last year's team would be no simple task.
Fortunately for the Northstars, Johnson's backfield running mate Miy'Jon McDowell Reid has been up for the challenge this season.
"He's a special athlete ... a special football player. We're very blessed to have him as part of our program," Ryan said. "He was RB2 last year and pretty much for 90% of the programs around the area, he would've been RB1, but we had Anthony Johnson last year. To have that kind of two-headed attack was great, but we knew he was gonna come into this year and be poised for a really good season."
The senior ball carrier rushed for three scores during the Northstars' dominant 48-12 road victory over Class AA rival West Genesee on Friday night at West Genesee High School.
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Those three rushing scores pushed his total to 12 for the season.
"He does a lot for us not only on special teams, but defensively and then obviously offensively," Ryan said. "He can catch the ball on the backfield and so we're excited about where he's at right now and we're thrilled with his production so far."
McDowell Reid entered Friday's game with a team high of 80 carries for 602 yards. That's over 50 more yards than Johnson had through the first four games of the 2024 season. But Johnson ran for 410 yards in week 5 and finished the year with 1,970 yards and 29 touchdowns to earn second-team all-state honors and be named an All-CNY player of the year finalist.
On Friday, the Northstars opened up a 27-0 halftime advantage thanks to two rushing touchdowns from McDowell Reid and two receiving scores on a Alexander Salloum to Braydon Dems connection.
The Wildcats opened the second half with a 39-yard pass and catch for a score from Evan Dufford to Alej Molina.
McDowell Reid answered with his third 1-yard TD run.
In the fourth quarter, with the game all but over, Christian Green added two rushing touchdowns for the Northstars and West Genesee got one more score from X'zavion Streiff on the ground.
The Northstars have now earned back-to-back convincing victories. They defeated Rome Free Academy 41-6 last Friday.
"I think this last week was really good for us," Ryan said. "I thought our coaches did a tremendous job teaching this past week and I think that made a huge difference going into this game, and you know, we're just kinda like chopping away. We're excited where we're at now, but certainly not satisfied."
C-NS (3-2) will look to continue rolling when it hosts Utica Proctor at 6:30 p.m. next Friday.
West Genesee (1-4) will try to recover from a four-game losing skid when it hosts Rome Free Academy on Oct. 17 after next week's bye.
