Spartans reach final for first time in 20 years
For the first time in 20 years, the Westlane Spartans senior boys football team will be playing for a championship.
The combined team of Westlane and Stamford players earned that right Wednesday with a hard-fought 25-15 victory over the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons in Niagara Region High School Athletic Association Tier 1 action.
“It’s a huge deal because it has been a long time for Westlane,” Spartans head coach Jason Babony said. “I don’t think the kids realize how big of a deal it is to get to the final.”
There were a number of attributes that helped Westlane earn a berth in the championship game.
“We have talent, but we weren’t just riding on talent,” Babony said. “The kids worked hard and did what they were coached to do. And it was the collaboration and leadership of the team that helped bind us together.”
Westlane player Josh Bigelow said it was amazing for Westlane to make the final.
“We lost to GFESS or its old name for the last three years in a row in the semifinals so it feels real, real good to be in the championship game,” the six foot, 255 pounder said.
The Grade 12 player felt it was the Spartans’ work ethic that helped the team get over the hump and make the championship game.
“We turned it up this year,” the 17-year-old said. “Our effort was through the roof in practice and we brought the intensity up and put our game faces on.”
The four-year football veteran felt the Spartans were motivated by what happened last year.
“We had the team to do it last year and we realized we had a second chance,” he said. “We all came into this year realizing we had the people and we could make it happen.”
Bigelow made it happen on the field Wednesday in only his second game at the linebacker position.
“He’s really strong and he was originally our offensive and defensive lineman, but he’s tough enough, quick enough and strong enough to play off the ball a little bit when we need him,” Babony said. “We tried him out at Sir Winston to see how he would work out this week and he did pretty well.”
Bigelow said it was anything but an easy adjustment.
“It’s easy in the sense that you are still tackling the ball carrier, but it’s a very different game,” he said.
That being said, he was happy with his performance.
“You have to use your brain a lot more,” he said. “On the line, it is always attack, but playing linebacker you have to know what is going on all over the field.”
Wednesday’s game was a hard-hitting affair all over the field and exactly what Greater Fort Erie head coach Dave Sauer had predicted earlier in the week.
“It was tough, there were penalties all over the place and they made plays and we didn’t,” he said.
The Spartans led 12-0 after the first quarter and 18-0 early in the second quarter and GFESS was unable to fight all the way back. The Gryphons managed to cut the lead to 18-15 in third quarter, but that’s as close as they would get.
“The first quarter killed us when they jumped on us and then we got some momentum back but we missed a couple of plays and that hurt us,” Sauer said. “I thought we had the momentum in the second half and I thought we were on our way, but we didn’t do it.”
Greater Fort Erie wasn’t able to muster much offence, but were helped by Westlane penalties, including 47 yards on the Gryphons TD drive that cut the lead to 18-15.
‘We were brutal on offence today and just struggled,” Sauer said. “They have a strong defence, but it’s inexcusable on us that we couldn’t move the ball.
“We’re not used to that and we need to execute better in the future.”
The Spartans won’t earn any style points for the victory, but will take it.
“It was really ugly, but I thought our kids did well with the adversity to finish the game,” Babony said.
The adversity came in a blizzard of Spartan penalties for the second straight game.
Babony knows his team won’t have a prayer if it takes too many penalties against A.N. Myer in the championship game (assuming Myer beats Churchill in the other semifinal Thursday).
“A team like that will capitalize on it like they did last time,” he said. “We have to fix that.”
Because the Spartans are made up of players from two schools, they are ineligible to advance out of the league to meet the Catholic representative in the Niagara final.
Myer thumped Westlane in the regular season and the Spartans will need to be much better this time around.
“We need to have less penalties and more effort,” Bigelow said. “I know we can do it but we need to go into the game believing we can win and playing like we did tonight.”
Mick and Angelo’s/Johnny Rocco’s Player of the Game: Westlane’s defence, led by linebacker Josh Bigelow, that held Greater Fort Erie to 94 yards, including minus yardage for most of the first half.
For the Westlane Spartans: Chase Bowden, 40-yard TD run and 57-yard TD pass from Mike Osborne, fumble recovery and interception; 48-yard TD pass Osborne to Darcy MacIssac; two safeties by defence; rouge by Mario Borojevic; Nate Surla, two sacks; Quentin Palinko, interception; Nic Surla, sack.
For the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons: Thomas Cochrane, 80-yard kick return for a TD and two-point convert on pass from David Stewart; one-yard QB keeper for TD by Stewart; Adams Lukacs, two interceptions; Liam Allcroft, fumble recovery.
Game stats: First downs: Westlane 9, GFESS 11. Net offence: Westlane 231, GFESS 94. Penalties: Westlane 15 for 147 yards, GFESS 9 for 85 yards. Turnovers: Westlane 4, GFESS 6.
