On Friday afternoon, the Wolfpack found itself in an even bigger hole.

They trailed 28-0 at halftime to the Section IV powerhouse with a trip to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class D championship game on the line. However, there would be no comeback this time as the Tigers won their 40th consecutive game 63-16 and punched a ticket to the state final next Saturday at the JMA Dome where they will seek a third straight title.

“It wasn’t our day. We just played a tremendous football team,” Clymer/Sherman/Panama head coach Ty Harper said. “One of the best teams I’ve probably ever seen at any level, really. For a Class D team, they were just tremendous, super well-coached, strong, fast. Any positive thing you could say about a team, that was Tioga today. They outplayed us, and that certainly doesn’t take away from any of the accomplishments that we had this year and I’m still incredibly proud of my guys.”

A big part of what kept Clymer/Sherman/Panama from getting back to this point the last two seasons was the running success of Randolph with Xander Hind. Unfortunately for the Wolfpack, the two-time defending state champion Tigers also lean on the running offense and it proved unstoppable yesterday.

Clymer/Sherman/Panama’s Bryce Hinsdale finds room to run during Friday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class D semifinal against Tioga at Cicero-North Syracuse High School. P-J photo by Tim Frank

“That’s a great comparison,” Harper said. “Anytime Randolph is really, really good you know what they’re going to do to you and we kind of came into this game with the same mindset. They’re going to try and thump it right at us and we’ve got to be tough enough to stop it. They were just better than we were today. We tried a few different things on defense to slow them down. The quarterback is just really, really good and he’s got a complement of a couple backs that are both fast and strong and tough. We didn’t have an answer for it.”

Tioga amassed 428 yards on the ground. Leading the way was senior Drew Macumber, who found paydirt four times for the Tigers. He opened the scoring with a 31-yard rushing touchdown and then added scores from 13, 5 and 38 yards.

All around, the Tigers showed why they’ve been the best team in Class D the past three seasons, getting it done on the defensive side of the ball, too. Tioga stymied the dynamic Clymer/Sherman/Panama offense, keeping the Wolfpack off the scoreboard in the first half and even returned an interception for a score.

Trailing 14-0 against a formidable opponent, the Wolfpack started using plays for the first time early on. In the second quarter, just after Macumber’s second touchdown, the Tigers intercepted quarterback Tate Catanese for a touchdown. Tioga’s Karson Sindoni played the screen pass perfectly, jumping the route, then bursting into the clear for a 49-yard pick-six.

“That was incredibly impressive, because we’ve never run that play before,” Harper said about the interception. “We’ve never run that play before and they just jumped it. The defensive end made an incredible play getting to the flat. That took the wind out of the sails for sure. I thought we played really hard in that first quarter and we were battling. That was definitely a momentum shift, having that happen to go down three scores. At that point we knew it was going to be tough to chip away at it.”

Clymer/Sherman/Panama head football coach Ty Harper, far right, and his players, Grant Lictus (53), Devin Johnson (9), John Watson (7) and Kaden Beckerink (58) accept the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class D semifinalist plaque. P-J photo by Tim Frank

Clymer/Sherman/Panama put together its best drive of the first half on the final possession, working into Tioga territory, but time ran out on the Wolfpack. Tioga entered halftime with a 28-0 lead and if it wasn’t over then, it was over when the Tigers started with the ball in the second half.

Tioga methodically marched down the field after the break, but instead of running it into the end zone the Tigers decided to go to the air for the second and last time of the day as Evan Sickler reeled in the lone passing touchdown of the contest for 39 yards from Caden Bellis.

That was just the beginning of Tioga’s statement second half, as it tacked on rushing touchdowns by Ousmane Duncanson from 64 yards and Bellis from 53 to get up 49-0 with a quarter left to play. Then in the fourth Macumber ran in his final score and Jonah Lamb rushed in a 36-yard touchdown.

Clymer/Sherman/Panama played resilient throughout and Connolly Cup finalist Catanese broke into the end zone from a yard out to prevent the shutout. Then he ran in the extra point to make the score 49-8.

“Very proud of Tate,” Harper said about his junior quarterback’s season. “I’m proud of the way that he’s represented our program all season long. He’s a leader, the kids look up to him and obviously he’s coming back next year. I know this will be motivation for him, and I think he’ll rally those younger guys and hopefully we’ll be back at this stage next year.”

Then, on its final drive of the game, Clymer/Sherman/Panama was able to get two seniors into the end zone. Tony Cipolla finished the Wolfpack drive with a 3-yard touchdown rush and then Devin Johnson punched in the conversion to make the final score 63-16.

“We have 13 or 14 seniors on the roster,” Harper stated. “They’ve all played such an instrumental role in getting us to this point and we’ve been working for a couple years to get back here. I’m sad that we couldn’t get over the hump today, but for them it was a great season. It’s something to build on for the underclassmen. They’ve had a taste now of winning and getting to the state final four, and at the end of the day there’s four teams in every class that get to play in the state final four, so even though today is a disappointment, we’d rather be here than sitting on the couch right now.”

Tioga will seek its third straight Class D championship next Saturday at the JMA Dome in Syracuse when it takes on Section II’s Stillwater which narrowly escaped Section I’s Haldane 21-20 in the East semifinals.

C/S/P 0 0 0 16 — 16

Tioga 7 21 21 14 — 63

T–Macumber 31 run (Fisher kick)

T–Macumber 13 run (Fisher kick)

T–Sindoni 49 INT return (Fisher kick)

T–Macumber 5 run (Fisher kick)

T–Bellis 39 pass to Sickler (Fisher kick)

T–Duncanson 64 run (Fisher kick)

T–Bellis 53 run (Fisher kick)

CSP–Catanese 1 run (Catanese run)

T–Macumber 38 run (Fisher kick)

T–Lamb 36 run (Fisher kick)

CSP–Cipolla 3 run (Johnson run)