To call the football contest between Fayetteville-Manlius and Corcoran on Friday night a wild affair would be a slight understatement. The score was 20-20 – at the end of the first quarter. And the pace never let up, the Hornets getting its best chance of the season to pull out a win before a late surge pushed the Cougars past F-M 54-37. And that final score was a bit deceptive because, with less than two minutes to play, F-M only trailed 40-37. One more defensive stop would make it quite interesting. Instead, Shakem Buckmon’s one-yard touchdown run made it 47-37, and when the Hornets fumbled the ensuing kickoff, Carlton Morman returned it 30 yards for another score. Prior to that, though, F-M, even with an 0-3 mark, was giving the heavily favored Cougars quite a headache. The game was just 2:26 old when Mike O’Neill ran six yards for a TD, capping off F-M’s first drive, giving the hosts a quick 6-0 edge. But Tyquan Mahon promptly returned the next kickoff 88 yards for a score, and in a span of barely three minutes, the Cougars added two more touchdowns. Down 20-6, F-M didn’t yield. Instead, it scored twice in a span of 1:37 late in the period, as O’Neill connected with Mike Lee on a 29-yard TD pass and Marcus LaBarge ran three yards for another score. All night long, F-M fullback Kyle Greer tore through Corcoran’s defense, carrying the ball 27 times for 200 yards. And Gree’s five-yard TD run early in the second quarter pushed the Hornets back in front 27-20. Still clinging to a 27-26 edge at halftime, F-M got on the board again on Zach Travolaro’s 32-yard field goal less than two minutes into the third quarter. But that 30-26 lead did not last, as Corcoran teammates Tyshawn Golden and Travon Burke both scores on short runs, putting the Cougars up 40-30 with one quarter left. F-M put together yet another scoring drive, Matt Moro going the final yard for the touchdown with 9:52 left, cutting Corcoran’s margin to 40-37. But Corcoran would use a long drive of its own to seal the win. Still at home next Friday, F-M (0-4) will again try to break the skid when it faces Henninger at 7 p.m. The defending Class AA champion Black Knights are 2-2, coming off a 20-14 win over West Genesee where it had to make a last-minute defensive stand inside its own 10-yard line to hang on. Henninger might be without quarterback Shawn Bryant, who injured his shoulder in the first series of the WG game.