With its post-season chances resting in the balance, there was no way the Bishop Grimes football team was going to disappoint the big crowd that turned out last Saturday for Homecoming. Surviving a wild first half, the Cobras seized control by turning its defense around and relying on senior Brad Trimm’s sturdy right arm to produce a 37-27 victory over the Sandy Creek Comets. The win improved Grimes’ record to 2-1 in Class D West play (3-2 overall), and gave the team a chance to further cement its Section III playoff hopes if it can win Friday night at Watertown IHC. Trimm, for the most part, executed the Cobras’ spread offense with cool precision, as he threw the ball 52 times, completing 33 of those passes for 464 yards and five touchdowns. For the season, he has 1,616 passing yards, the most of any Section III passer. All of that was needed against a Sandy Creek team that ran the ball at will in the first half and answered everything the Cobras could put up, forcing Grimes into a 27-21 halftime deficit. By that point, Trimm already had thrown for three TD’s, two of them on short strikes to Pete Penizotto (of 15 and five yards), the other a 59-yard strike to Keith Kwasigroch where Kwasigroch caught the ball at midfield and outran everybody to the end zone. Through the long halftime, head coach Brad Keysor implored his defense to start making stops — which it did after Grimes took the second-half kickoff and marched 60 yards to the go-ahead score, a 14-yard pass from Trimm to Penizotto. When Trimm made a rare mistake and got intercepted at the Comets’ one-yard line, the defense answered on the next play as Dan Shandorf tackled Mike Elkin in the end zone for a safety, making it 30-27 in Grimes’ favor. Grimes was denied another score when Anthony Quinto fumbled near the end zone late in the third period, but the defense forced a quick punt that led to a short scoring drive where, on the last play of the quarter, Trimm hit Steve Dillmore on a 12-yard TD connection. On the first play of the fourth quarter, Shandorf recovered a Sandy Creek fumble, and Quinto would later add an interception as the Cobras put the game away. Grimes knows its playoff hopes hinge on the trip to IHC, since Weedsport (who beat Grimes in that wild 52-33 game on Sept. 15) is likely to finish second in Class D West and the Cobras close the regular season with state no. 1-ranked Onondaga next weekend.