Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton running back Ryan Jafarjian carries during a Class C South football game between the Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton Thunderbirds and the Gowanda/Pine Valley Panthers, at Pine Valley High School. OBSERVER Photo by Justin Goetz.

CHEEKTOWAGA — All across sports, teams live by the notion that anything can happen when you get to the playoffs. Saturday afternoon in Cheektowaga, the Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton Thunderbirds proved that to be true in the first round of the Section VI, Class C football playoffs.

The Thunderbirds defeated the John F. Kennedy Bears by a score of 13-6 on Saturday afternoon to advance to the Sectional semifinals of Class C next week.

At the beginning of the year, after a 42-0 loss at home to Southwestern, not many would have believed the Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton Thunderbirds (4-4) would be a playoff team. Now, they’ve not only made it in, but the Thunderbirds are now moving on.

“This is a great win for our program and these three communities. This is what it’s about. Not winning and losing, but learning lessons,” said Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton head coach Bryan Bongiovanni. “We’ve told these young men all year not to let other people set expectations for them, or to tell them what they can and cannot achieve. They get to set their own expectations. We were told ‘we wouldn’t win a game’. We did. Then ‘we wouldn’t make playoffs’. We did. ‘But we can’t win a playoff game’. We did. We set our own expectations in this program and will continue to do so.”

The Thunderbirds were led offensively by running back Ryan Jafarjian, who totaled 186 yards on 34 carries. When Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton got deep into the redzone, Westfield’s Jafarjian passed the baton to Brocton’s Caleb Chelton, who had both rushing touchdowns on the day, from four yards and one yard out.

“Ryan and Caleb did a great job running the ball today, but a ton of credit has to go to our line. They were winning the line of scrimmage all day long,” said Bongiovanni.

“Our line dominated both sides of the ball. That allowed us to pound the ball on them,” added Jafarjian.

Scoring a pair of touchdowns on the day was just enough offense for the Thunderbirds, thanks to a stellar effort from the defense on Saturday. The Thunderbirds forced four turnovers — two fumbles and two interceptions — including a game-sealing interception by Jafarjian with just seconds left on the clock to preserve the victory.

“We never gave up. The interception at the end was a great way to seal the game and show people that we could do this,” said Jafarjian.

Chautauqua Lake’s Brendon Rowe also had a key interception in the redzone in the second quarter, while Brocton’s Ceric Kristan had six tackles and a sack, along with two fumble recoveries. Jafarjian led the team with 10 tackles, while Anton Graham and Luke Ormsby added seven tackles each.

“Our coaches (Ryan Gibbs, Kevin Denny and Steve Haas) did such a tremendous job preparing our guys for this game and our players did a great job executing,” said Bongiovanni of his coaching staff.

Moving forward, the Thunderbirds get another shot at the Southwestern Trojans, this time in Lakewood later this coming week, in the Class C semifinals. The winner will head to New Era Field for the Class C Sectional title game on Saturday, Nov. 9.