Bulldogs take down Eagles
Life took a huge step toward a return to normalcy Wednesday afternoon at Sir Winston Churchill.
Under a perfect blue sky and in ideal conditions, high school football was back after the COVID pandemic wiped out the entire 2020 season.
The Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs topped the visiting Grimsby Eagles 41-7 in Niagara Regional High School Athletic Association senior action, but the outcome seemed secondary.
“It feels better than everything,” Sir Winston’s Josh Morley said when it was all over. “I mean most of us, literally, we’ve just been anticipating this. We’ve been on the field every day.
“There’s nothing better than that it, you know?”
Morley, an 18-year-old, Grade 12B student, was glad he persevered through the tough times.
“I know guys that have given up on it,” he said. “Everybody’s really excited to be back again.”
Sir Winston head coach Peter Perron echoed Morley’s thoughts.
“So we have an opponent that’s healthy and that we can be doing this again, it’s just unbelievable,” Perron said. “I think it opens up everything for us. Board-wide, sport-wide, getting the kids healthy, getting them out in the fresh air and getting the competitive juices again, you can see our kids were pretty excited today.
“The thing is for like two years you’re holding the horses in the stable and now you let them out and they want to run.”
Even in defeat, Grimsby coach Zack Silverthorne didn’t have to search very hard for a silver lining.
“The message was, ‘Hey, we got to play, right?” he said. “This is good. People are here, parents are here and hollering and what’s high school without high school football?
“This is what they’ll remember when they’re our age sitting on the deck.”
The Bulldogs raced out to a 28-7 lead at the half and dominated from start to finish, something not lost on Morley.
“All my years of Sir Winston, we’ve really had to fight hard to get wins, we’ve never really blown any team out. It feels great because we worked for this. That’s my mentality. We don’t recruit, we don’t do that, we work for this. Everybody on this team worked for this.”
Morley, who has played with the Niagara Spears in the past, wants to continue to play as long as he can, but doesn’t plan to go the university route.
“I’m not a classroom guy,” he said, noting his future is at the junior college or Canadian Junior Football League level.
Perron was quick to praise Morley not only for his play, but for his attitude and leadership abilities.
“He’s my No. 1 captain,” Perron said. “Just his leadership with the younger players, he leads by example. He can lead by words but by example, he’s just phenomenal. And the thing is a lot of the players feed into that, and they start to emulate him.”
Overall, Perron loved his club’s passionate play.
“Our guys, you could see the hunger in them,” he said.
Having said that, he is well aware there is still more work to be done.
“So the idea is that being young and still learning we have to get to that next level,” he said. “Let’s get it under control and let’s correct our mistakes and move on from there. We’re not perfect. We have a lot of work to do as well, just to keep growing and developing as a team.”
Silverthorne, who guided the Eagles to a championship in 2019, said the Eagles are in rebuild mode with only four returning players.
“We knew we were behind the eight ball,” he said. “We had to do so much teaching. We had a kid ask us, ‘What’s worth more, a touchdown or a field goal?
“But we moved the ball and we made some stops. We made some big mistakes, we gave up home runs. It’s a ton of work but that’s what we do.”
STATS PACK
Bulldogs 41 Eagles 7
BPSN Star of the Game: Sir Winston’s Josh Morley with two touchdowns and a convert.
For the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs: Morley 2 TDs, convert; Quinn Johnston 2 TDs; De’Ondre Forde TD; Ryan Cormier TD; Ethan Velasquez 2 converts; Jessar Osman covert; Janal Williams interception.
For the Grimsby Eagles: Tyler Soppett interception, TD; Ty Kellar convert.
Up next: In NRHSAA senior action Friday, Westlane is at Eden on the Governor Simcoe field at 3 p.m., St. Catharines Collegiate is at Centennial at 3 p.m.; and, A.N. Myer is at Greater Fort Erie Secondary School at 7 p.m.
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