DOVER-FOXCROFT – Lincoln Robinson remembers the last time Foxcroft Academy earned back-to-back trips to the Class C state championship football game.

It was 1996 and 1997, dual appearances that produced different results. The Ponies won their last state title in ’96 by defeating Old Orchard Beach in the championship game, then fell to Lisbon in the ’97 final.

Robinson and the other 19 seniors on this year’s Foxcroft team – which will play Lisbon for the 2003 state title at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland – were just starting their football careers in 1997, the first players in a newly created sixth-grade football program in town.

“When we were really young, we were watching the ’96 and ’97 teams go to state championships,” said Robinson, a senior captain who plays fullback and linebacker. “We all remember that, and we’ve talked about it for a long time. That’s what we had for a goal, we wanted to be just like them, and I think that’s given us some of our inside drive during our earlier days of playing football.”

While the modern-day Ponies would like to match the 1996 edition as a state champion, this senior class already has achieved considerable success.

As seventh-graders, they played on an undefeated junior high team.

As eighth-graders, they were undefeated again.

As high school freshmen, they were part of an unbeaten junior varsity team.

Since then, Foxcroft has gone 30-4, including 22-1 over the last two seasons.

“In our seventh-grade year when we went undefeated with last year’s seniors, that’s when we realized we could be real good in high school,” said senior captain Matt Earnest, a wide receiver and defensive back. “Then our eighth-grade year we went undefeated again, and our freshman year our JV team went undefeated, too. It was like, ‘Wow, three undefeated seasons in a row, it’s going to be fun when we get to be seniors.'”

Now they are seniors, and on the brink of the state championship that track record suggested was possible.

But the Ponies’ second straight undefeated regular season was not without challenges, particularly coping with season-ending injuries to two-way starters Brandon Hall and Noah Kennedy and rebuilding the offensive and defensive lines after four of five starters graduated.

“We basically had five new linemen, because the one returning starter we had, Chris Lewis, was playing a new position,” said senior captain Josh Withee, a quarterback and defensive back.

But that group, consisting of seniors Lewis, Mike Larrabee, and Dane Miles, juniors Randy Briggs and Kris Preble, and sophomore James McPhee, developed rapidly, helping Foxcroft grind out nearly 400 yards in offense per game while also serving as the foundation for one of the LTC’s stingiest defenses.

“They had to learn their positions in a varsity atmosphere, which is a little more difficult than the JV atmosphere because it’s faster-paced, with more competition,” Withee said. “But they’ve really stepped up, and it’s been outstanding to see their improvement from week to week.”

Only one more game remains for the Foxcroft football Class of 2003, a chance to match the teams that shaped their gridiron memories, and a chance to reverse both the 1997 loss to Lisbon and last year’s 25-20 loss to Boothbay.

“This one’s definitely for our seniors, for our whole team and for the guys who went down there last year and lost such a tough one,” said Robinson. “Really, we look at it as some unfinished business.”

The Ponies hope last year’s title-game experience, particularly playing in front of a big crowd on the artificial turf of Fitzpatrick Stadium, will serve them well.

“I think it will help a lot,” said senior captain Max Kennedy, a halfback and linebacker. “Knowing what it feels like to be in that big of a spotlight, having the experience of being there, playing on that field, and the emotions that go through you, maybe having experience will make us a little more relaxed.

“All of us played in that game last year, and the way we felt after that game … we just don’t want that feeling again.”