Oct. 21 football report: High school; OUA; Niagara Generals
The Greater Fort Erie Gryphons (4-1) clinched second place in Niagara Region High School Athletic Association Tier 1 senior football action with a 34-7 victory over the Westlane Spartans (0-5).
“The defence was great today for us (Friday),” GFESS head coach Dave Sauer said. “They had numerous big plays and they kept getting the offence the ball with turnovers.”
Campbell Laroche threw two touchdown passes to Reilly Borelli and another to Braeden Eder. The TD passes were from 40, 10 and 50 yards out.
Mason Arbic added six-yard and four-yard rushing majors for the Gryphons.
“I was pleased we kept our momentum from last week despite a really rough week of practise,” Sauer said. “We got ourselves a home playoff game and are finally getting to full health.
“We have had numerous players stepping up for us which has really given us quality depth.”
For Westlane, Owen Dobbin ran a punt back 60 yards to set up a 15-yard scoring screen pass to Connor Miller. Mario Borojevic booted the convert.
“It was rough,” Westlane head coach Jason Babony said. “We were missing kids due to injuries from the week before and we fielded 24 kids for the game.
“They knocked our starting quarterback out of the game just after half so we were limited to what we could do.”
Already missing their backup quarterback, Westlane’s coaching staff was drawing up plays for a stand-in quarterback.
IRISH 40 GATORS 0
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish senior football team (5-0) clinched first place in Niagara Catholic Athletic Association play with a 40-0 shutout of the Lakeshore Catholic Gators (0-5).
For the Irish, Jacob Succar scoring rushing touchdowns from 22, 19, and 28 yards out and added an 87-yard punt return for a TD; Zach Melnyk has TD runs of four and 14 yards; Cole Smith booted four converts; Hunter Cropper was 7-8 passing for 157 yards; Notre Dame’s front seven on defence played tough all game; and, Cam Hunt, Melnyk and Alex Goulbourne recorded sacks.
“We still need to be more disciplined on special teams. Too many bad penalties on special teams and defence and missed opportunities on specials teams will hurt us in the playoffs,” Notre Dame head coach Tim Bisci said. “We have one game left and we will try to work on the things that have hurt us this year and get ready for the playoffs.”
OUA ROUNDUP
Guelph 40 Toronto 26
Jordan Terrio (Saint Paul) caught five passes for 27 yards and added a 10-yard punt return to help Guelph (6-2) record a 40-26 victory over Toronto (2-6) in Ontario University Athletics football action.
Greg Corfield (Saint Paul) recorded a sack for Guelph.
Western 32 Ottawa 23
Cole Majoros (Lakeshore Catholic) had four receptions for 76 yards, a seven-yard run and two punt returns for 11 yards to help Western (8-0) record a 32-23 decision over Ottawa (5-3).
Also for Western: Antonio Valvano (St. Francis) had a 13-yard reception; and Jake Andrews (A.N. Myer) had 0.5 tackles.
McMaster 31 Waterloo 14
Tre Ford was 18-24 passing for 157 yards and had six carries fro 37 yards in a losing cause as Waterloo (4-4) dropped a 31-14 decision to McMaster.
Also for Waterloo: Rushon Dagelman (A.N. Myer) caught three passes for 20 yards; Tyrell Ford (A.N. Myer) recorded four solo tackles and an interception: Jake Andews (Denis Morris) had two solo tackles and three assisted tackles; and, Mitch Demers (St. Francis) recorded a solo tackle.
Carleton 22 Laurier 10
Josh Ferguson (Sir Winston Churchill) had 26 carries for 142 yards, including a nine-yard TD run, and four catches for 34 yards to spark Carleton (4-4) to a 22-10 victory over Laurier (4-4).
Also for Carleton, Keaton Bruggeling (Eden) had an eight-yard catch and Sandor Mod (Notre Dame) recorded two solo tackles.
Acadia 44 St FX 25
From last week’s action, Chase Bowden (Stamford/Westlane) had 11 rushes for 55 yards and a six-yard TD run as St FX (1-6) fell 44-25 to Acadia (6-0).
NIAGARA GENERALS
The Niagara Generals bantam football team defeated the Waterloo Predators 33-14 to finish the Ontario Football League regular season with a 5-3 record.
Leading the way for the Generals were: Clayton Crawford with four TD passes from David Robinson; Cole Haan with a screen pass TD from Robinson; Elijah Jama with three interceptions; Hunter Young with two picks; and, Kieran McDonald and Francesco Dalla-Valentina with single interceptions.
“It wasn’t the kind of game we were hoping for in terms of mistakes, however, a win is a win and we will take it,” Niagara head coach Jim Storin said. “There were many flags today on our offence, backing us up many times. We were able to convert on many of them, however not the direction we want to be going heading into playoffs.”
The Generals had too many turnovers which prevented them from getting anything going in the first half.
“We have two weeks to prepare for playoffs,” Storin said.
Jacob Ranger, Josh Young and Nathan Owen showed improvement and played strong games for Niagara.
“Our team continues to get better and better each week as our boys progress through the season,” Storin said. “There isn’t much of a drop off with our subs and that’s why we are such a tough team to compete against.”
