A weather postponement denied them a frenzied Friday-night atmosphere. Injuries depleted the backfield. Poor snaps and turnovers portended a lopsided defeat.
Yet the Fayetteville-Manlius football team overcame all of these issues to give state Class AA no. 7-ranked Cicero-North Syracuse its biggest scare this season, battling all the way through a 35-21 defeat to the Northstars.
Both sides came into the game with 3-0 records, but just as the hype reached its peak, high winds and threatening thunderstorms led officials to move the game to Saturday afternoon.
At first, the delay did little to bother the Hornets, who took the opening kickoff and marched 67 yards, at first relying on its ground game, but then crossing up C-NS when, from the Northstars’ 30, Owen Neuman rolled right and found Jack Nucerino, who broke tackles down the sideline all the way to the end zone.
That 7-0 lead did not last long, though. Jeremiah Willis returned the ensuing kickoff 55 yards deep into Hornets territory, and C-NS ran it in from there, Jaiquawn McGriff going the final three yards for the score.
Hayes found Geloff for a 39-yard strike near the goal line to set up McGriff’s second TD late in the first quarter, but his next throw got picked off by F-M’s Jordan Leuze.
F-M quickly gave it back as Zach Page fumbled at his own 12, recovered by Jack Collins. Now Dominic Isabell replaced Hayes under center, and on fourth down found Geloff in the end zone from seven yards out.
Down 21-7, the Hornets’ troubles went beyond the score. Already, Mitch Seabury was out, and now Page and Trevor Fallon were injured, too, depriving F-M of its top three running backs.
Still, with the likes of Tim Shaw filling in, the Hornets ran off eight-plus minutes on a long march aided by two personal-foul flags on C-NS, scoring with 33 seconds left in the half on Neuman’s five-yard strike to Jack Hannah.
So it was 21-14 going to the second half, though now it was C-NS taking the kickoff and converting as it moved to F-M’s 34, where Hayes rolled out, threw deep and found Shy’rel Broadwater in the end zone.
Even more important, though, was the goal-line stand it made late in the period, several defenders stuffing Neuman on fourth down at the one. That was one of two pivotal defensive plays, the other involving Geloff jumping in front of a Neuman sideline pass and going 33 yards for the TD with 8:01 left.
That made it 35-14, and though the Hornets battled to the end and Neuman added a 52-yard scoring pass to Hannah midway through the fourth quarter, it could not get any closer.
F-M will take a 3-1 record to Rome Free Academy on Friday just as Christian Brothers Academy continues its quest to get any kind of win in 2018 following a 27-7 defeat to Liverpool at LHS Stadium.
Unlike with F-M and C-NS, the Brothers did start its game on Friday, the kickoff moved up to try and beat the impending storms, and got on the board in the first quarter with a drive that Tim Denham finished with a four-yard TD run.
Liverpool tied it, 7-7, in the second quarter as Jacob Vacco scored from 10 yards out, but they were still even early in the third quarter when the sight of lightning sent the teams off the field.
Though the weather cleared out in less than two hours, it was decided to move the finish to Saturday morning, by which time any sort of momentum CBA possessed was gone.
Twice in the third period, the Warriors got on the board, Cade Clouthier scoring on a 43-yard run and Vacco adding a second TD from six yards out. In the fourth quarter, Vacco put it away with a six-yard dash to the end zone.
CBA is home this Friday to face Henninger, who lost its first three games of the season before an impressive 35-6 romp over Nottingham.
