Tupper Lake’s Luke Robillard splits through the South Lewis defense during a home game at the Frank Tice Memorial Field on Oct. 18.(Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)
TUPPER LAKE — As the high school winter sports season will soon kick off, the Tupper Lake football team is hoping to extend one of its most dominant seasons in recent years.
The Lumberjacks, which are the last remaining fall sports team in the Tri-Lakes still competing, will take on the the Charles O. Dickerson (Trumansburg) Blue Raiders today in the NYSPHSAA 8-man quarterfinal round at 6 p.m. at Moravia High School.
Tupper Lake enters the playoff matchup with a 7-1 overall record, and ranks eighth in the latest New York State Sportswriters Association poll. It’s only the second time in 20 years the Lumberjacks football program has won seven games or more in a season. The last time was in 2007 when the team finished 9-1.
Today’s playoff matchup will mark the first time Tupper Lake has played since Nov. 1, when it defeated the Ticonderoga Sentinels 64-8 at the Frank Tice Memorial Field.
During that game, the Lumberjacks ran for an eye-opening 542 yards as a team and added seven touchdowns on the ground in the first-ever Section VII-X 8-man football playoff game.
A big reason for the team’s success has been from its seniors, which account for most of their offensive production.
Senior running back Luke Robillard leads Tupper Lake with 768 rushing yard on 110 carries, while scoring 11 touchdowns on the ground. Robillard also leads the squad defensively with a team-high 80 tackles. Fellow senior running back, Brayden Shannon, has churned up 912 all-purpose yards from returns and rushes. Shannon has scored nine touchdowns this season.
Quarterback Wyatt Godin, a senior, has also had a stand-out season so far. He has scored five rushing touchdowns, four passing and one defensive.
Earlier this month, Lumberjacks head coach Dennis Klossner said his team has a lot of weapons on the offensive side of the ball, and they’ve been working hard all season.
“They’re hard hitting and are the heart of the team,” he said on Nov. 1. “They play well together, they play as a group and as family and they love the game of football, and it shows.”
On the other side of today’s matchup, Trumansburg boasts a 9-1 overall record, and ranks No. 3 in the latest state poll. The Blue Raiders secured its playoff berth with a 34-12 victory over the Moravia Blue Devils in the Section IV, 8-man football championship game.
Moravia, which earned one of the two Wild Card spots in the 8-man state playoff following an 8-2 season, finished as state runner-ups in last year’s 8-man playoff.
During Trumansburg’s section VII title game, quarterback Nik Nelson passed for four touchdowns and ran for one. Dafydd Williams hauled in two passes for touchdowns.
The winner of tonight’s playoff matchup will advance to the state semifinal contest at Middletown High School at noon on Nov. 29. The winner will take on either Moravia or the Section IX champion Sullivan West, depending on which team wins the other quarterfinal contest.