Defending champs remain unbeaten
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish senior boys football won the Battle of the Unbeaten Friday afternoon on their home field but it wasn’t pretty.
Despite turning the ball over five times on downs, the Irish improved to 4-0 in Niagara Catholic Athletic Association play with a 16-2 victory over the Blessed Trinity Thunder (3-1) to give head coach Tim Bisci a birthday present.
His team sang Happy Birthday to him after the game but Bisci was doing anything but singing his offence’s praises in a half-time talk that focused in on his team’s inability to score more than an unconverted major late in the half.
“We are trying to do too much. If we would have done the simple things, I think we could have put 28 on them,” he said afterwards. “We shot ourselves in the foot and they kept battling to the credit. We have to be better at finishing things off. We go 40 yards and we’ve got the last 15 and we can’t get anywhere.”
An even bigger issue the team is dealing with right now is battling the injury bug.
“We are banged up and it’s nerve-wracking every day almost seeing who is healthy and who is not,” Bisci said. “We got Ben (quarterback Tsanoff) to come back this week and a couple of other guys will come back next week. Hopefully we don’t lose anyone today because we have a big game next week against Saint Mike’s and then it is on to the playoffs.”
Bisci had no issues with his defence that held the Thunder to 52 net yards in the first half with most of it coming on one long pass.
He picked Dylan Correia as his team’s defensive player of the game after the Grade 12 student picked off a pass and helped shut down the running game inside.
“He was young last year and he came back and worked out like crazy and he’s our go to. Him and Cole Stewart inside and (Patrick) Scully coming back really helped us out. He is an athlete and he can play,” Bisci said. “Playing against a running attack like that, we shut it down and that on those guys.”
The 17-year-old wasn’t overly impressed with himself for helping to shut down BT’s running game and top runner Jayden Gurzi-MacDonald.
“He is a good running back but their offence I think wasn’t that good. They were pretty predictable and I got a pick on them in back-to-back years,” he said. “It’s fun to play them and good luck to them but we are beating them every time.”
He points to a number of factors leading to Notre Dame’s success.
“It’s the intensity, the players all love each other and we all play for each other. And coach Bisci is a big part in the schemes and what we do on defence and offence. It’s all love man. We have a great time and ball out.”
There was no panic in the Irish Friday even with a slim 6-2 lead at the half.
“Our defence was pretty locked in. Our offence was a little bit shaky but then we picked it up in the second half,” Correia said. “We can make it to OFSAA but we have to work on a lot of things still. But first we have to think about our next game against Saint Mike’s.”
Correia also kicked a 22-yard field goal in the game filling in for the Irish’s injured kicker.
“There was a little bit of rust to get off but I got the kicks down pretty good,” he said.
Blessed Trinity head coach Sean Jones was pleased with his team’s defensive effort.
“Our defensive guys battled pretty hard and pretty well for most of the game and spent more time on the field that we wanted to. They pulled our butts out of some tight situations early,” he said.
All their first-half stops seemed to tire them in the second half.
“We got worn down and had a couple of guys go out with injuries. One guy went down and another guy went down and it is almost a Domino Effect,” he said. “The guys who went in did a pretty good job but they were tired.”
On offence, there was one issue that Jones pointed to.
“We need to do a better job on the offensive line. They’re a good defence and they have been a good defence all year. We knew we were going to have to work hard to get points but as a team that prides itself on running we need to be able to run the ball when you have explosive backs.”
Jones feels there is some work that needs to be done for his team to be able to win the big games.
“We need to eliminate a lot of mental errors that happened today. We got into a big game today and made way more mental errors than we can afford to make to be successful. That will be our No. 1 priority and if we can fix that, our muscles, are legs and everything else will pick up the slack.”
GAME STATS
Irish 16 Thunder 2
Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game: Notre Dame’s Justin Savoie with TD runs of two and six yards and key runs to take time of the clock in the second half.
For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Savoie, 2 TDs; safety by defence; two sacks by Liam Liddiard; two punt blocks by Marcus Tsanoff; interception by Dylan Correia and a 22-yard field goal; and, interception by Colten Kizlyk.
For the Blessed Trinity Thunder: safety by defence; sack by Aidan Sartor; and, convert block by Ethan Rakonjac.
Game stats: First downs: ND 12, BT 7. Net offence: ND 243, BT 141. Turnovers: ND 5, BT 4. Penalties: ND 6 for 60 yards, BT 12 for 80 yards.
