Everyone in the Jordan-Elbridge program had pointed toward Friday night’s game against Herkimer.

Aside from the fact that it was Homecoming, it was also a chance to get even with the Magicians side that had kept the Eagles from the Carrier Dome a season ago when Herkimer prevailed 42-27 in the Section III Class C semifinals.

Yet even with the festive atmosphere, and even with the no. 11 state Class C ranking gained from a 3-0 start, J-E could not keep the Magicians from prevailing again, this time by a more lopsided 36-14 margin.

Or more specifically, the Eagles couldn’t stop Herkimer quarterback Mitchell Scherer, who torched J-E’s defenses for 255 yards on 31 carries and scored five touchdowns.

Naturally, Scherer got the lone points during the first quarter, finishing off a Herkimer drive with a seven-yard TD run and then adding the two-point conversion.

J-E closed the gap to 8-6 just past the midway point of the second quarter when Sam Robles found the end zone from 23 yards out. The conversion was missed, though, and the Magicians countered with a scoring march that Scherer finished with a five-yard sprint to the end zone with 1:15 left in the half and another two-point conversion.

Though it only trailed 16-6 at intermission, any chance J-E had dissipated during the third quarter, when Sam Robles fumbled twice on long runs on consecutive plays, each of which Herkimer converted into Scherer touchdowns on runs of 45 and six yards.

George Richardson offered the Eagles a bright moment when he scored on a 14-yard run late in that same period, but Scherer, again, answered, his 15-yard scoring run with 8:36 left putting the game away.

A week earlier, J-E had knocked off Bishop Ludden 33-22. When the Gaelic Knights returned home Friday to face LaFayette/Fabius-Pompey, it turned into a wild, tense affair that Ludden was able to claim over the Lancers by a 47-43 margin.

Everything was in doubt until the Gaelic Knights’ defense, which had proven unable to contain LaFayette/F-P most of the night, made a fourth-down stop in the final seconds to thwart the Lancers’ late comeback attempt.

Things got rolling on the second play from scrimmage when Sh’ikem Lee found Joe Connor deep for a 68-yard TD connection. That 7-0 lead didn’t last long, though, as LaFayette/F-P scored twice and, by the early part of the second quarter, was up 15-7.

Then it was Kevin Burkhart’s turn for a big play, the Ludden tailback rumbling 61 yards to the end zone on the first play after the Lancers’ second TD, and then scoring again on a five-yard run that, with the conversions, put the Gaelic Knights back in front.

LaFayette/F-P cut the Ludden margin to 22-21 by halftime, but on the first play of the third quarter Keandre Sanders stepped in front of a Ryan Agedal and returned the interception 50 yards for six points.

Again the Lancers answered, moving back in front 29-28, but before the period was done, the Gaelic Knights had struck twice more, Lee finding Connor on a 28-yard scoring pass and Burkhart going five yards for his third TD of the night to make it 41-29.

Still, it wasn’t done. LaFayette/F-P scored early in the final period, and Ludden, now up 41-37, needed to answer – which it did, Lee finding Connor once more from 37 yards out for the touchdown with 8:20 left.

And those would prove the winning points. Agedal’s 50-yard scoring run less than a minute after Connor’s TD, and got the ball again with 3:30 left at its own 24.

Disaster nearly struck when LaFayette/F-P thought it had scored the go-ahead TD with 2:04 to play, but a holding penalty brought it back, and from there the Gaelic Knights forced a turnover on downs to end it.

Burkhart ran for 200 yards on 17 carries and Sanders got 100 yards on just six carries, balanced out by Lee completing nine of his 11 passes for 200 yards, most of it to Connor, who had six catches for 177 yards.

Ludden would look to improve to 4-1 next Friday when it hosts Canastota, just as J-E makes a long road trip to face Sherburne-Earlville. Both games kick off at 7 p.m.