Farmington has played three of the zaniest games a high school team has likely ever played, scoring and giving up points like an arena football team.

But the one constant in these ping-pong matches has been running back Nick Bliss. So when Bemis found himself with a lead late in the game, he gave the ball to Bliss again and again and Bliss led the Indians down the field to a game-wrapping field goal by Ryan Dunn. Farmington thus was able to get out of town with a 38-28 win over upstart Vinal/Coginchaug in a game played at Palmer Field Friday night.

"We absolutely stole one tonight," said Bemis, whose club is now 3-0. "I think we got lucky. We are not doing enough to help ourselves defensively. I know that (Antonio) Inglis is a very talented back, but they spread us out and made it hard for us to contain him. Still, we missed so many tackles."

Inglis had a monster night. The Vinal/Coginchaug running back had a school record 278 yards in 27 carries and nearly single-handedly kept V/C in the game. However, it’s fair to say that V/C should have won the game.

The Hawks had a 14-0 lead, but made three killing turnovers -- an interception thrown by Todd Manjuck and two fumbles by flanker back Jovan Cofield -- and all three led directly to scores.

"The turnovers hurt," said V/C coach Bob McNamara. "I thought there at the end we were going in for a score and I would go for two right there at the end of the game. But it didn’t work out."

This was the situation. V/C had the ball trailing 35-28 with less than seven minutes left in the game. The Hawks, who had no trouble moving the ball on the ground all night, quickly moved from their 23 to the Indians’ 37. But on second and four, Cofield fumbled at the end of an eight-yard, first-down run.

Disaster.

After a first-down pass from Steve Harrington to Sean Gerhart for 22 yards, Bemis gave the ball to Bliss. He gave it to him seven times. Bliss gained 5, 13, 2, 13, 24, 2 and 3 yards. Then Dunn kicked a 22-yard field goal with 47 seconds left and the game was won.

"They finally moved the ball on the ground against us," said McNamara. "We wanted to take what they do best away from them, which is run the ball, and we did. We forced them to pass, we rolled the dice, and they beat us doing what they don’t usually do."

McNamara was right. Farmington threw the ball because -- until the end -- it couldn’t run. Harrington was 11-for-16 for 232 yards. He was a brilliant 7-for-7 in the second half for 140 yards.

And Farmington doesn’t like to throw.

V/C took a 7-0 lead when Inglis ran 68 yards with 9:06 left in the first quarter. The Hawks made it 14-0 on a 30-yard Inglis TD at 1:18 of the first.

Farmington got its first touchdown at 11:51 of the second on a 42-yard TD pass from Harrington to Gerhart and the Indians tied the game turning a Cofield fumble into a momentum turning TD on a 28-yard pass from Harrington to Martin Jones with just 24 seconds left in the half.

Farmington took a 21-14 lead at 9:57 of the third on a 16 yard Harrington-to-Gerhart TD pass. V/C came back five minutes later on a 34-yard run by Inglis, but the kick failed and V/C trailed 21-20.

The Indians upped their lead to 28-20 on a 27-yard end around TD by Jones with 2:45 to go in the third, but in this game, no lead was safe.

V/C got a one-yard TD from Inglis and a two-point conversion run from The Franchise to tie the game 28-28 at 9:41 of the fourth. Harrington hooked up on yet another bomb, this time a 46-yarder to Jones with 8:19 to take a 35-28 lead. You know what happened after that.

"It’s a good thing I’m a calm man," said Bemis after watching his team win its third nutty game. Farmington’s earlier wins were 41-34 over Middletown and 42-39 over Rham. "If I wasn’t a calm person, I wouldn’t be alive now.’