Mustangs advance to NCAA final and SOSSA semifinals
The Saint Michael Mustangs senior football team can thank its defence for a 31-22 victory over the Blessed Trinity Thursday in the Niagara Catholic Athletic Association senior football semifinals at Kiwanis Field.
The defence forced seven turnovers and scored two touchdowns to send the Mustangs into next week’s championship game against the defending champion Notre Dame Fighting Irish. With the semifinal victory, Saint Michael also advanced to the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association semifinals no matter what happens in the league championship game.
Leading the defence for the Mustangs was Grade 11 player Connor Cavey, who had an interception in the second quarter and ran in a fumble recovery from five yards out in the fourth quarter.
“He is our heart and soul on defence. He is not the biggest kid but he has the biggest heart out there and that’s a kid who if you are going to war he is going to be on the front lines,” Mustang defensive coordinator Mark Antonelli said. “He will do whatever it takes to get the job done and he’s making plays big plays all day long, especially as a gunner on punt teams. He is one of the best that I have seen in a long time.”
Cavey is a Connor-of-all-trades for the Mustangs.
“He’s our halfback but he is a bit of a gadget guy,” Antonelli said. “He has played halfback, he has played corner, he has played a little bit of safety and he has played SAM linebacker. He might end up playing nose tackle next week.”
Cavey’s fumble recovery was the second defensive major of his career. He had a pick 6 last season.
The 5-foot-7, 140-pounder loves being described as the heart and soul of the defence.
“He always says that I am the most cool-headed on the defence so I try and make sure that everyone else is the same and everyone is relaxed. I also make sure everyone knows what they are doing and that everyone feels good.”
That calm under the pressure comes from an important attribute he possesses.
“It is an understanding of the game. I get riled up every once in awhile but I understand how I can get that back down and get back into the groove.”
Cavey has been playing high school football in Grade 9 but doesn’t play travel because he is focused on rugby.
“It’s mainly the contact,” he said about his love of football. “I like tackling people.”
He plays for the Niagara Rugby Union Association and is hoping to get to play at the provincial level.
His rugby training is well-suited for the football field.
“The tackling in rugby is much better because it is a necessary thing for rugby since you have no pads. You need to know how to tackle properly and it’s also covering people. In rugby, you always need to be tracking people and that really helps me with football,” the 16-year-old said.
Antonelli felt his team didn’t do anything special on defence to stifle the Thunder.
“We told the kids if we win one we get two (games) and quite frankly we made some adjustments. We knew they were a good team, we knew they had good players and talent and ultimately at the end of the day we fought,” he said. “We had some interesting ups and downs over the course of the year but lately we challenged the kids to be more composed. If they stay composed defensively, they can do anything.”
Like the rest of the Saint Michael coaching staff, Antonelli wasn’t pleased with how the team almost frittered away a large lead in the second half of the fourth quarter.
“That is going to come with maturity. Saint Mike’s is a football program that hasn’t been in a situation like this before and they will learn,” he said. “We are not going to talk about the win. We are going to talk about the last 12 minutes and what we can do to not let that happen next week against a stronger opponent.”
Cavey had seen that movie before.
“It is the same every time with us. We go up by a couple, we get lackadaisical and we can’t afford to do that.”
The Thunder beat the Mustangs 35-21 on Sept. 28 but seven turnovers made sure BT wouldn’t record the season sweep.
“You encourage the kids to try and make plays and to go out there and make things happen and unfortunately today there were way too many mistakes for us to be able to overcome,” Blessed Trinity head coach Sean Jones said.
Despite all those mistakes, the Thunder rallied and made the game close at the end.
“A couple lucky bounces and you try to tell the kids that as long as there is time on the clock you are still in the game. To the credit of at least some of our guys, they kept battling and we had a couple of guys out there playing really hard and not willing to surrender,” he said. “But it gets to the point where you have dug yourself a hole that is too deep to climb out of.”
BT finished the regular season at 4-1 while the Mustangs were 3-2.
Jones will look back on the season as one where his team faced plenty of adversity having no home field and having to practice on a small field in front of the Grimsby Peach King Centre. Both moves were the result of the installation of an artificial turf field for the Thunder.
“With everything we had to deal with this year, being the Road Warriors which we kind of embraced, it was an extra challenge that we had to face. We had limited practice facilities and limited practice time because of that and all of those things kind of chip away at the little things you need to get done in practice and we didn’t always find the time for. A game like today, where it often comes down to those little details, we made a lot of mistakes.”
STATS PACK
Mustangs 31 Thunder 22
Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game: Saint Michael’s Connor Cavey with an interception and a five-yard fumble recovery return for a major.
For the Saint Michael Mustangs: Interception and fumble recovery returned for TD by Cavey; 85-yard pick 6 by Luka Cuthbert; 18-yard TD pass Austin McRae to Jake Salvatore; two-point convert on pass from McRae to Salvatore; 85-yard kick return major by Angel Diaz; two-point convert on pass from McRae to Cuthbert; two interceptions by Max Marinas and single point on missed field goal; single point on punt by Luka Bielich-Dermott; interception by Matthew Lim.
For the Blessed Trinity Thunder: One-yard TD run by Ryan Broome; eight-yard TD pass from Jayden Gurzi-MacDonald to Wyatt Bezuyen; two-point convert on run by Gurzi-MacDonald; three-yard TD run by Gurzi-MacDonald; two-point convert on QB keeper by Gurzi-MacDonald; fumble recoveries by Caleb Olomide and Ethan Rakonjac.
Game stats: First downs: SM 9, BT 13. Net offensive yards: SM 207, BT 284. Turnovers: SM 2, BT 7. Penalties: SM 11 for 95 yards, BT 9 for 65 yards.
