Bulldogs romp in opener
The Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs senior football team opened its Niagara Region High School Athletic Association Tier 1 football season in impressive fashion Friday night at home.
After starting the season with a bye week, the Bulldogs opened emphatically with a 49-0 thumping of the Centennial Cougars (0-2).
“It is a very good start to the season,” Churchill head coach Peter Perron said. “I liked our flow and our confidence and those are the big things that we are looking at building. We made some errors but we did the corrections and got them out of the way. The kids were picking it up really quickly.”
Perron feels improvements are coming at a faster rate than in previous years.
“It’s a mixture of what we have in seniors and returning 12Bs and 12s as well as juniors coming up from last year. We had a good building year last year and this year we are seeing the fruition of that.”
He is excited for the season that lies ahead.
“We are going to compete and I don’t want to go much more than that because other teams will see us for what we are. I’m not going to say we are better than any other team. That is garbage but I want to compete with them and we are all here trying to win. I want to compete this year as usual but this year I am pushing.”
Helping Perron push the team forward is three-year 12B captain Ty Kostyniuk.
“His leadership on the field and at practice is beneficial to the team. A lot of kids are seeing that and starting to commit to that level.”
But it’s not just his leadership abilities sparking Churchill.
“He is stronger this year compared to last year and he understands the game more. His desire to win, to push and become better is the big thing for him as are his play, cutting ability and reading the game with his football IQ,” Perron said. “He is bringing everybody else along with him.”
The 18-year-old, two-way player feels there is a different vibe to the team this season.
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Last year we were in a big rebuild. We had faith going into games and then we would get into games, struggle a little bit and shut down,” the 5-foot-10, 250-pounder said. “This team all goes for it and I haven’t seen one guy quit yet. Guys are coming off the bench and being in starting positions right away and they are all showing up to practice more than ever before.”
The players have huge hopes for the season.
“We expect more than all four or five years that I have been here. I am in my last year now and I am trying to move on and play university ball but I have never seen a team this committed to trying to win every single night,” he said.
He takes his leadership role on the team extremely seriously.
“I take it as an honourable role and it is really important to me that I put myself out there as someone who younger kids can look up to, the juniors especially. For example, I was out here with the juniors earlier, practising with them and making sure they were ready for their game before us,” Kostyniuk said. “I want to make sure that SWC football has the same mentality going into each game.”
Centennial head coach Brad Barter agrees his squad has lots of work to do in the weeks ahead.
“In this game, the defence started to click a little bit more and things started to happen but on offence we were off by just a few inches. We’ve got some fine-tuning to do heading into the bye week so we are going work out the kinks and then we are on to West Niagara.”
It is not how Barter hoped the season would begin.
“After last year making it to the final game, this is not the start we expected but we knew there would be some growing pains because we lost a lot of our 12s and 12Bs. We lost a lot of beef on our line so we are in a little bit of a retooling year,” he said. “We have lots of promise with our upcoming juniors. They are young, they are hungry, they want to play, they have some talent and some of them are already starting for us. We are going to be in good shape moving forward and we just need to address where we are falling behind.”
STATS PACK
Bulldogs 49 Cougars 0
Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game: Churchill quarterback Liam Finley with three TD passes.
For the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs: 13-yard TD pass Finley to Simon Marshall; TD runs of one and 64 yards by Cory Witter; 43-yard TD run by Marshall; 10-yard TD pass Finley to Cole Lewis; 16-yard TD pass Finley to Lukas Goodbrand; three-yard TD run Joshuwa Savoie; two-point convert on pass from Ty Kostyniuk to Marshall; interception by James Lindsay; fumble recovery and sack by Kostyniuk.
For the Centennial Cougars: two sacks and a forced fumble by Kyle Buchanan; sack by Tristan Cassibo.
Game stats: First downs: SWC 10, CC 2. Net offensive yards: SWC 324, CC 76. Turnovers: SWC 1, CC 7. Penalties: SWC 7 for 40 yards, CC 2 for 15 yards.
