They waited 15 years for Fayetteville-Manlius and East Syracuse Minoa to meet again on the football field. With any luck, there won’t be a similar wait for the next renewal. In a throbbing, tense classic played out on a warm September Friday night, the Spartans rallied from a 19-point second-half deficit and had the lead down the stretch, only to see the Hornets staged its own late-game comeback to pull it out by a 38-33 margin. The return of Paul Muench as F-M’s head coach veered from unqualified success to unmitigated disaster before a turn of events in the final minutes let the Hornets escape. Trailing 33-32, and having just fumbled the ball at ESM’s 35, the Hornets made a defensive stop and then saw the Spartans commit a bad snap on a punt to get the ball back in F-M territory. From there, with the runs of Jared Shaw, Kyle McGee and Anthony Nucerino, the Hornets powered to ESM’s goal line, only to get stopped on second and third down at the one-yard line. Going for it on fourth-and-goal, Shaw kept it himself, dove as he was hit by a host of ESM defenders – and made it past the goal line by inches with exactly one minute to play. The Hornets’ two-point conversion was missed. Down by five, and out of time-outs, ESM quickly marched to F-M’s 35-yard line, but when Jake Rodman threw deep down the left side, Matt Truman made the interception at the Hornets’ 10 with 30 seconds left, and the escape was complete. F-M knew, though, that it was lucky to win after the way it squandered everything it had done in the early stages to establish control. Big plays pushed the Hornets along in the first half, from Shaw throwing long touchdown passes of 28 yards to David Stegemann and 44 yards to Fernando Johnson, to McGee taking off on a 26-yard scoring run on a trap play. When Truman’s long kick return led to Shaw scoring on a six-yard scramble midway through the third quarter, F-M led 32-13, and looked ready to put it away. Then ESM turned a routine contest into something quite special. Already, Jeremy Perry, lining up at fullback, had established himself as the Spartans’ primary offensive weapon, scoring on a 22-yard shovel pass from Rodman in the first quarter and on a 15-yard run early in the third period. But it was Perry’s third TD, from 19 yards out, that sparked the ESM comeback and also led its defense to start tightening its grip on a Hornets side that lost a handful of key players, including Josh Loeffler, to injuries. Early in the final period, a key 22-yard screen pass from Rodman to Perry set up Greg Buck’s 22-yard sprint to the end zone that pulled the Spartans within a touchdown, 32-25. Two possessions later, with the Hornets unable to reestablish its attack, the Spartans drove again, and once more Perry finished it off, getting his fourth TD on a 20-yard run with 5:03 left. Going for two and the lead, ESM again gave it to Perry, who dove into the end zone as he was tackled. Just like that, ESM had that 33-32 advantage, and had it got a first down after James Rettinger’s fumble, it may have put things away. Instead, F-M got one more chance, and didn’t waste it. It came on an evening where Jamesville-DeWitt, opening at New Hartford, made a big opening statement, rolling to a 48-21 victory over the other Spartans of the local Class A ranks. Rahmel Smith would lead the Red Rams’ efforts, starting with a 16-yard scoring pass from Josh Kowalczyk in the first quarter, but that was just the appetizer. During a second period where J-D took the lead for good, Smith followed up Eli Williams’ three-yard TD run by taking a handoff deep in his own end and outrunning all of New Hartford’s defenders on an 83-yard dash to the end zone. Yet even that paled next to the second-half kickoff. With J-D already in front 20-7, Smith fielded the deep kick at his own six, found a seam and did the rest, a 94-yard touchdown that, more than any single play in the game, broke New Hartford’s spirits. Kowalczyk, who had won the three-way battle for the Rams’ starting quarterback job, put things away by twice finding Jai Benson for TD passes of 21 and 20 yards. Mike Anderson added a three-yard scoring run for J-D’s final points of the night.