JV, bantam Spears still chasing first win
Two of the three Niagara Spears travel football squads are still in search of their first wins of the year in Ontario Summer Football League action.
In a trio of games last weekend at Notre Dame, the Varsity Spears defeated the Cornwall Wildcats 17-0, the Junior Varsity Spears fell 26-7 to the Kingston Grenadiers and the Bantam Spears were shut out 35-0 by the London Junior Mustangs.
GRENADIERS 26 JV SPEARS 7
“I saw some positives but a lot of mistakes. Our team is young and every time we made a mistake we paid for it,” Niagara head coach Brad Martin said. “Sometimes you get away with a mistake or two in a game but we make a play on a ball and it pops up and the other guys catches it and runs it for a first down.”
Too many mistakes and too many penalties has been an early theme for the JV Spears.
“It is a consistency thing. They are learning but it seems like they are making mistakes at bad times and we’re paying for it.”
Martin saw a lot of positives in the running game, in the play of quarterback Jacob Iannizzi, who scored Niagara’s one major of a five-yard scramble, and on defence.
“The defence played great again but they can only do so much.”
Two players that stood out on defence for Martin were Nathan Vander Meer and Lucas Landry.
“I liked their ability to pressure the quarterback. They had a couple of great sacks, we took their starting quarterback out of the game with a couple of big hits on him, they forced a couple of fumbles and they work well together in tandem.”
Martin and his team head back to the drawing board in anticipation of a Saturday 4 p.m. home game at Kiwanis Field against the third-ranked Hamilton Junior Ti-Cats.
“It is a matter of execution. The effort was better today (Saturday) but we’ve got to stop making so many mistakes. And it’s little things like getting your drops in coverage, running the right routes, picking up blocking assignments when they pressure us. It is the little things that they’ve gotta figure out and once they do it we will be a lot better.”
LONDON 35 BANTAM SPEARS 0
Niagara started the game in fine fashion with a defensive series that included a sack by Tristan Herbert and an interception by Nate Derksen.
“However, we were unable to capitalize on this and London went on to score 35 unanswered points in the first half,” Spears head coach Troy Herbert said. “Unfortunately we could not get things going offensively as we had some mistakes that stop some of our drives.”
The Spears received a fumble recovery from Bennett Angle and Asar McIntyre-Christie and Angelo Chukwu provide some positive runs on the offensive side of the ball.
“A couple of turnovers and some costly mistakes were too much for us to overcome. With that being said, I was proud that the players competed to the end of the game against a very good London team,” Herbert said. “We will work on cleaning up the mistakes this week at practice as we prepare for Hamilton Junior Tiger Cats this Saturday at home.”
Game time at Kiwanis Field is 1 p.m.
