Tioga Central’s dominance continues with five state-championship wins in five appearances

By David Gough, Group Sports Editor —

SYRACUSE — After a one-year hiatus, the Tioga Central dynasty in NYSPHSAA Class D football is back in full force.

The Tigers’ 42-31 victory over Tuckahoe on Friday afternoon in Syracuse’s JMA Wireless Dome is the program’s fourth state championship in the last five years and fifth overall.

When head coach Nick Aiello has led his five state-championship-bound teams to Syracuse over his 16-year stint, Tioga Central has never lost inside the dome.

“I think it just takes a program, it takes a community, it takes a village, and it takes a lot of tough kids,” Aiello said.

The dominance that Tioga Central football has shown over the last decade and a half goes beyond the state level.

More than the 5-0 record in the final weekend of the season, the Tigers have made it to the Section IV championship 13 times and won it 12 times. They are a perfect 12-0 in the state quarterfinals.

But the fifth state-championship Tiger team stands out in its own way.

They were a team doubted. They weren’t the team that had the 2021-2023 three-peat core that made virtually every game uncompetitive.

This group was the one that was unable to turn the three-peat into a four-peat.

But they took last year’s Section IV championship heartbreak, a 21-20 overtime loss to Delhi ending a season full of injuries and inexperience, and used it as fuel this year.

“There’s nothing more motivating than a loss,” Aiello said. “You end your season on a loss like that; as a coach, you can always say, ‘This is why you lost, this is why you lost, this is why you lost.’ In the end, they needed to change their work ethic. But they answered the call. It didn’t take much to do that.”

There was the obvious fix to get back to Friday’s point of having a healthy Logan Bellis for the season.

The senior running back, who was set to be the premier back as a junior before a season-ending injury in the second quarter of the first game of 2024, came back and made this offense go with 2,266 yards in just 13 games.

But more than the stats and results, Bellis was just one of 11 seniors who did not want the team to feel that pain again before they graduate.

That group of seniors includes Jayden Duncanson, Brayden MacWhinnie, Conner Streeter, Kadin Cole, Gage Hopkins, Gavin Albrecht, Austin Mumbulo, Nate Hulbert, Max Paugh, and Dominic Palmer.

It started with 5 a.m. workouts in the offseason.

“I give a lot of credit to the seniors,” junior quarterback Jackson Bombard said. “The leadership this year was amazing. They held everybody accountable; they were super vocal. They worked their butts off. They are the reason we got here, man.”

Many of the seniors saw playing time or were at least with the team when Tioga Central had last won a state title in 2023. Having that allowed Aiello to trust his guys to live up to the moment on Friday.

And they sure did.

The Tigers reached 40-plus points for the third time in their official 13-1 season. They had 410 yards of offense; Bombard had a couple of long, game-changing completions to seniors Cole and Albrecht, and Bellis had a final game he’ll never forget with five touchdown runs, 170 yards, and a State Championship MVP.

“Losing the section final (last year), it wasn’t what we wanted, but we knew we had to work, and we knew we could be back here at one point,” Bellis said. “We just had to work for it, and that’s what we did.”

Defensively, Tioga Central allowed its fair share of points against Tuckahoe, but three fourth-down stops and a forced punt made the difference.

“We feel comfortable as coaches that if we can get them to this point, they’re going to be playing some pretty good football and that we’ve got a chance,” Aiello said. “We came out and played real well today. We knew it was going to be a battle. We knew we could move the ball on them, which proved true. We just had to limit the big play.

“They got some, but we got more.”

A motto the Tigers lived by in 2025 was “Victory is earned.”

Aiello said that his team lived up to that by their willingness to work to get to this point.

He also praised his staff, which consists of Adam MaCauley, Jordan Hathaway, Josh Kithcart, Jake Howland, Tyler Spires, Connor Hutchinson, John Worthing, Stan Siberski, Jude Platukis, and Dan Pearce, calling them “unbelievable.”

Aiello’s players agree. They don’t get to be the rare team that never loses in Syracuse without the culture that has been built over the last 16 years.

“They really just push us to execute,” Bellis said. “Couldn’t be more proud of the coaches and the players for executing on the field.”

“The guy who is running the ship,” Bombard added. “He’s one of a kind. He’s the greatest coach I’ve ever played for. We practice like no other team around, man. He holds us to a standard that needs to be met.”

(David Gough is a Sports Editor with Sample Media Group)