Lafayette dropped their second round playoff game to Eureka (10-1) 27-14, ending their season. The Lancers finish the season with a 7-4 record, the same record as last year. The game was close and competitive up until the fourth quarter, where Eureka was able to capitalize on several Lancer mishaps.

The Lancers opened up the scoring with a 24 yard touchdown pass from Ryan O’Connell to Marquis Yarbrough, scoring with 8:48 left to go in the first quarter. Eureka followed up that drive with a long touchdown drive featuring some thundering runs from Hassan Haskins. After that, the two offenses began to struggle, with Eureka putting up six points off of two field goals until early in the fourth quarter and Lafayette putting up none. Eureka opened the fourth quarter with a touchdown run, and were able to run for another touchdown on their very next drive, making it 27-7, a three score game, with 8:49 left in the game. However, Lafayette squandered their opportunities on their remaining drives, only scoring once with a 57 yard deep pass from O’Connell to Torre Butts with 3:50 left to go.

On offense, despite opening the scoring, the Lancers struggled to find a groove at quarterback. O’Connell did well passing, going 12-22 for 188 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Ryan Novak also did well running, but struggled passing the ball. Novak had eight carries for 33 yards on several designed run plays like quarterback draws. The passing for Novak was not nearly as good, going 1-4 for ten yards, no touchdowns and one interception. The rushing attack for the Lancers was completely stifled, going 58 yards in 25 carries, mostly done by O’Connell and Novak. The running back, Austin Stofer, was stuffed for negative four yards on nine carries.

Eureka also was struggling to score in what was initially a defensive battle but the Lancer defense ended up breaking down late in the game. The Wildcats ran for 284 yards thanks to Haskins and Tyler Kennedy, and were protective of the ball, with zero turnovers.

Overall, the season was still solid for the Lancers despite their loss in the playoffs.

Senior defensive lineman Henry Preckel said, “(It was a) solid season; obviously we wanted to take it farther. (My) favorite moment was probably beating Eureka the first time.”

With games like the rainy battle against Eureka and the homecoming game against Webster Groves, the 2016 season featured several moments that will make it hard to forget.