Marauders take down the Irish

It was a game local high school football fans had been waiting two years to witness.

Competing in the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association semifinals Wednesday afternoon at Notre Dame were the two best football programs in Niagara; the Niagara Catholic Athletic Association champion Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Niagara Region High School Athletic Association champion A.N Myer Marauders.

The two teams didn’t play last year because they were on opposite sides of the SOSSA playdowns. When they last met on Nov. 18, 2021 in the Niagara Bowl, the Irish emerged with a 36-7 victory.

On Thursday, it was the Marauders turn to celebrate as they rode their line play and the running of quarterback Thomas Somerville to a 21-6 victory in the Niagara Bowl.

“I am little sore right now and my calf is a bit messed up,” said Somerville, who rushed for 108 yards on 11 carries, including touchdown runs of 25 and six yards.

The majority of his runs were straight up the middle into multiple defenders much bigger than the 5-foot-11, 160-pounder.

Somerville loves the contact in football and the more he gets the better he plays.

“Eventually all the pain just numbs out and you find a place where you can keep going.”

Somerville running the ball was not the plan heading into the game.

“It wasn’t working. They were showing a bit of pressure and my throws weren’t coming out good so we had to resort to that and it ended up working out.”

Somerville and his teammates were thrilled with the win.

“It is awesome. I heard that it is the first time in 27 years that Myer has beaten Notre Dame out of the playoffs and it feels great to do that. They are our rivals.”

Somerville felt there was one major factor that got the team over the hump.

“We are tough. We go hard every drive and we don’t give up.”

Myer head coach Dave Buchanan credited his team’s line play for the win.

“A lot of people talked about the size and strength of their line which is true but our vertically-challenged boys that are tough and strong, they played their butts off. They demonstrated that they were going to be the ones that would be pushing people around today.”

It was sweet redemption for the Myer program. After beating them in 2021, Notre Dame coach Tim Bisci noted that his team was big, strong and physical and had beat up the Marauders.

“I am not going to lie to you. That quote was brought up over the last week. We remembered that quote. We used it as motivation,” Buchanan said. “I’m not going there but all I am saying is we did not back down and we are proud about what our line did today.”

Somerville also did not back down.

“Thomas was struggling in some reads and they had some good concepts to defend that,” Buchanan said. “We knew that he was struggling with that but one of the main reasons why he is there is that’s the type of athlete he is. Tonight was good weather but we feel in a bad weather game or games like tonight when things aren’t going well he can take the ball and he can go run. God gave him some great speed and toughness and he has always been a gritty player. He put the team on his back from an offensive perspective and hats off to the defence. Every team that wins a championship has to have a helluva defence.”

That defence held Notre Dame to 15 net offensive yards in the first half and 124 in the game.

Prior to the game, Buchanan was thinking about the school’s many previous encounters with the Fighting Irish.

“Notre Dame has had our number for the last little bit. When I played with Myer, I played against them and there have been battles against Notre Dame for a long, long time. Sometimes we come out on top and sometimes they do.”

This year’s win meant a lot to the Myer program.

“We have been working hard to get to the point where we could say that we could beat them,” he said. “Kudos to them. They play well, they are coached well and they always have good players and a great program. Our boys believed in ourselves and we knew we could compete with them.”

On the other side of the field, the Irish wondered what might have been.

“We’re banged up, we are down probably six starters and we hung in as long as we could. A couple of guys went down and went back in and you are trying to patch it together,” Bisci said. “In high school, you lose your first guy and it’s tough. You lose your second guy and it gets a little more difficult and then you get down to your third guy. We just ran out of bodies tonight. Our five big guys had to go both ways and they just wore us down.”

Bisci knows who the villains are when it comes to his injury list.

“I said it two weeks ago that our league doesn’t do its champion any favours. We smack each other around and we have four teams that kick each other’s butts all day,” he said. “We kick each other every week and their league doesn’t do that. I will probably get in trouble for saying this but their league isn’t as tough as our league.”

Bisci has seen this scenario too many times.

“Two years ago, it was the same thing and in 2017 our quarterback was injured in the final game. Not that you’re expecting it, but we don’t do anybody any favours.”

He does agree that if a team can stay healthy through NCAA play, the tough competition is a big benefit moving into the SOSAA playdowns and beyond.

“You just try and stay healthy and at one point this year we were through four long snappers and three centres, our quarterback was out for a game and our running back has a shoulder injury.”

That running back, Justin Savoie, tried to give it a go Wednesday but lasted only one play before coming out of the game.

“There are years when you get some luck. To win you have to be good but you have to be really lucky. You have to stay injury free and healthy and make plays. If you don’t, this is what happens,” Bisci said.

STATS PACK

Marauders 21 Fighting Irish 6

Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game: Myer quarterback Thomas Somerville with TD runs of 25 and six yards and 11 carries for 108 yards.

For the A.N. Myer Marauders: Somerville, two TDs; 24 yard and and 19-yard field goals from Jonny Colcuc; two-point safety by defence; interception by Dylan Devries; sack and punt block by Deniz Duzgun.

For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish: two interceptions and a 19-yard TD catch by Trent Groulx from Ben Tsanoff; sacks by Cole Stewart, Wyatt Brown and Ethan Rocca.

Game stats: First downs: ANM 11, ND 4. Net offensive yards: ANM 276, ND 123. Turnovers: ANM 2, ND 3. Penalties: ANM 8 for 55 yards, ND 7 for 55 yards.

Up next: A,N, Myer advances to the SOSSA final Tuesday, Nov. 21 at 2 p.m. at Notre Dame against the Westmount Wildcats.