Bronxville hasn’t been involved in a ton of close, hard-fought battles this year. In truth, Saturday’s state championship showdown against Chenango Forks didn’t seem like an outlier based on the final score either. But the 42-25 win that gave Bronxville their first New York State Title since 2010 didn’t come easy, testing every ounce of resolve the Broncos had.

“This means everything; I grew up with these guys, freshman football, JV, so it means the world to win it with them,” said Bronxville quarterback Theo McMurray after the game. “I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else. It’s all about our mindset; we’re going to go out there, we’re going run and we’re going to hit.”

Bronxville capitalized on some early Chenango Forks miscues, jumping out to a 21-0 first quarter lead that made it seems as though this game would quickly devolve into a laugher, like the majority of other contests the Broncos have played in this year. But Chenango was able to right the ship, pulling to within 28-13 in the fourth quarter before a late Bronco surge was able to put things away.

Few images were more indicative of this than senior running back Brian Formato accepting his championship medal on Saturday afternoon, his face caked with sweat and blood, arms scraped open from the Syracuse turf. Formato more than did his part to get the Broncos to the mountain-top, rushing for three touchdowns and scoring on a screen pass to power the Bronxville to the New York State crown.

Wideout Desmond Heathwood said that Formato’s championship game performance was nothing out of the ordinary, as the senior standout finished with a whopping 42 touchdowns on the year, a feat that ties him with Sleepy Hollow superstar Brayden Richardson for the most single-season TDs in Section 1 history.

“He’s our best player, he’s our leader,” said Heathwood. “Everything starts with him, he brings the intensity every day and we feed off that energy.”

Heathwood also found the end zone, hauling in a 21-yard back-shoulder fade from McMurray in the first half to help the Broncos build up an early lead.

“Theo and I have been really close throughout the years, and we worked on these plays in practice,” said Heathwood. “To be able to execute those plays in a game like this, that’s a dream come true.”

Heathwood added that while the Broncos were confident at the start of camp in August, they began to realize just how good they could be after their Week 1 win over Westlake. The team would go on to beat both Section 1 Class B champ Sleepy Hollow and Section 1 Class D champ Tuckahoe during a campaign that saw them post a perfect 12-0 record.

“It all started against Westlake. We were down in that first half and we responded,” said Heathwood. “That’s the same energy we brought to practices all season; we just thought ‘Why not win it all?’”