That the Fayetteville-Manlius football team would struggle on Friday night, taking a 36-6 defeat to Henninger, wasn’t a big surprise, since the Black Knights enjoy a no. 14 state Class AA ranking and are considered the favorites for the Section III title. What was surprising, though, was what happened a few miles down the road at Alibrandi Stadium.
Christian Brothers Academy, accustomed to handsome wins by handsome margins in front of its home crowd, received a jolt when it lost, 50-23, to Corcoran, a result that threw the Class AA-1 division race wide open, with the Cougars, Liverpool and West Genesee all likely to join the fray. Though CBA had lost its season opener to Henninger 19-14 in the Carrier Dome on Sept. 5, all looked fine when it rolled past Nottingham 51-6 a week later, and though Corcoran was improved on all fronts, few imagined it could beat a Brothers squad that rarely loses at home. But it was quickly apparent that CBA, trying to adjust to life without injured linebacker Kane Alletzhauser, was far from settled on that side of the ball, and Corcoran pounced. Twice in the first quarter, the Cougars mounted scoring drives, ending with Martia Rufus finding John Elliot on a seven-yard touchdown pass and Isaiah Spann scoring on a three-yard run. Even the Corcoran defense joined in, recording a safety that made it 16-0 by the end of the opening period. Trying to fight back, CBA got on the board with Josh Brown’s 24-yard TD pass to Tanner Hail in the second quarter, but again saw Corcoran march down the field as Spann, from the one-yard line, scored and gave the Cougars a 22-8 halftime edge. The shock hadn’t worn off in the third quarter, either. A CBA drive ended with a fumble at the Corcoran 10, and the Cougars promptly used a long run to set up another touchdown. Then Brown threw an interception and, one play later, Rufus found Johnson for a 60-yard scoring pass, making it 36-8. To its credit, the Brothers tried to claw back, as Brown ran 19 yards for one score and then threw a 60-yard TD pass to Andre Dowdell, all of which cut Corcoran’s lead to 36-22, with plenty of time left to complete a miraculous comeback. However, when it got the ball on its own 17 midway through the fourth quarter, another fumble got returned by Lashondre Jamison for the TD, with Spann getting another score in the waning minutes to help the Cougars reach the 50-point mark. All of this overshadowed what took place at F-M, where the Hornets, looking to avenge last fall’s Class AA sectional semifinal defeat to Henninger, could not keep the Black Knights contained. Mostly, the Hornets paid for not taking advantage of three first-half interceptions by Henninger quarterback Romero Collier. Matt Truman got two of them, with Anthony Nucerino earning the other. But as Truman returned his second pick early in the second quarter, he fumbled, and the Black Knights got it right back. Given a second chance, Henninger grabbed an 8-0 lead thanks to Najee Everson’s seven-yard scoring run and Collier’s two-point pass toi Keisean Scott. F-M still was within reach, only trailing 8-0 at halftime, but things got tougher when the Black Knights, on its first possession of the third quarter, made it 14-0 as Collier, from the Hornets’ 35, threw deep to the end zone, where D.J. White snagged it. Shaking off his early struggles, Collier would supply a decisive blow when, on fourth down on the opening-play of the final period, he faked a handoff right and F-M’s defense followed in that direction, leaving Collier enough space to go 35 yards, untouched, into the end zone. That, plus Scott’s interception, Everson’s 13-yard scoring run and a pair of successful two-point conversions, made it 30-0 before F-M finally got on the board thanks to Kyle McGee’s long kick return and two passes from sophomore quarterback Henry Josephson – 20 yards to David Stegemann, and two yards to Jared Shaw in the end zone. Everson promptly answered with his third TD, on a 54-yard run, and Henninger had improved to 3-0, while F-M faced another daunting assignment next Friday at 3-0 Baldwinsville while CBA will look to recover from its Corcoran defeat with a trip to Rome Free Academy.