Tupper Lake track and field team (Enterprise photo — Justin A. Levine)

TUPPER LAKE — The Tupper Lake track and field team often has standout athletes but suffers from a lack of depth, which hurts them in meets. But an increase in the girls team and a well-balanced boys side is giving coach Gordie Duval a glimmer of hope.

Track and field meets are scored not only on individual performances, but the scores are combined for each athlete. This means that smaller schools like Tupper Lake struggle to accumulate points because they don’t have as many competitors as larger schools.

While the Lumberjacks lost a few prominent students to graduation last year, Duval said he’s got enough solid athletes on the team to send a few to the state championship meet this spring.

“The ones that were with us last year, we pretty much know what they can do. We have expectations for them,” Duval said. “We got all these young ones that came in from modified, and at this level it’s hard to say. But they’re looking good. They’re real enthusiastic, and they do anything we ask them to do.

“It’s a really good group this year, both boys and girls.

“Sophia [Martin], Ava [Cuttaia] for the girls. We’ve got Patrick Cote for the boys, Connor Jessie, Aaron Clark — these are guys that were with us last year so we pretty much know what to expect from them.”

The girls side is up to 18 athletes this year, and all but two of them are underclassmen. But with more kids to compete, Duval thinks the school stands a better chance of picking up a few wins during the season.

“For the girls, dual-meet season will be interesting because we have a little more numbers now than we have in the past,” he said. “Sectional-wise, it’s yet to be seen. We don’t know how the younger kids will come along during the season.

“Actually, we’re OK everywhere, which is different.”

Although the boys roster isn’t as deep, Duval said they’re pretty evenly divided between sprints, distance and field events.

“Obviously, dual meets are not something we’re going to focus on trying to win,” he said. A dual meet is when two schools compete head-to-head. “But we will look at individual performances and see if we can’t get those kids placing at states.”

Duval said the loss of standout athletes — such as Katie Zurek and Tess Stanton — from last year’s team will hurt this year, but he expects the younger kids to come into their own soon.

“One of the best things about the younger kids is they don’t know what they’re capable of,” he said. “There’s no limit. They haven’t got a self-imposed limit yet. They’re rough, uncut and ready to go.”