Saints eye march to title

When Collegiate football coach Nathan Greene assesses his team’s chances this season, his mind goes back to the final game of 2017.

Playing against the Grimsby Eagles (5-1) in the Niagara Region High School Athletic Association Tier 2 semifinals, the St. Catharines Collegiate Saints (1-5) gave Grimsby all it could handle before falling 34-22. The Eagles needed a late interception and an even later score to escape with the victory.

“We were literally one score away from beating the eventual champions and we had the ball late in game, driving in their end,” Greene said. “We have the same team coming back from last year, minus two or three players.”

Those players will be missed but replacements are ready to go.

“There’s players coming up who will step up into their places,” he said.

The Saints have high expectations for the 2018 season.

“I have a team full of Grades 11s and 12s, sprinkled in with some Grade 9s and 10s, so a championship run is our goal,” Greene said.

Saints quarterback John Emmorey shares those heightened expectations.

“We have the potential to be a championship team, but we have to be determined, not get distracted so much and really focus on becoming a team,” he said. “We have guys who come to practice and then they don’t come to practice.

“We are a good team, but we are not determined and we need that determination to be a championship team.”

The Saints have been building to this point over the past few seasons.

“The varsity program is unique because you are continuing to develop players in Grade 9 and 10 while you are trying to be competitive with yours 11s and 12s,” Greene said. “It’s a finesse kind of thing because your don’t want to throw Grade 9s and 10s into positions where they are going to be unsafe, but you want to challenge them to be successful.”

Collegiate’s coaching staff has managed to do just that.

“We’ve hit those points over the years and is it playing dividends now,” he said.

One player expected to pay huge dividends for Collegiate is Emmorey.

“He’s is a dual threat, on the ground and vertically with his arm,” Greene said. “We will be counting on him to run lots of RPOs (run pass options).”

Collegiate has yet to figure out who its main running back will be, but Emmorey will be throwing to a veteran receiving corps.

The key for Emmorey will be to stay healthy.

“We toyed with the idea of putting him at running back, but we feel he will be more durable at quarterback,” Greene said. “It will save him from getting into the constant battles that a running back has.

“Hopefully our offensive line can protect him, he won’t get as banged up as much and maybe we pick our spots when we have him running those quarterback options.”

Emmorey also needs to go down when fighting through tackles isn’t worth the pounding he will absorb.

“That’s easier said than done with him,” Greene said. “You can encourage him as best you can to go out of bounds or slide, but sometimes his aggressive nature gets the better of him.”

The 5-foot-10, 175 pounder is in his second year of playing football at Collegiate. Last year he transferred from Uxbridge Secondary School where he played rugby.

The 18-year-old wants to take his game to a new level this season.

“Definitely it’s reading players and defences before I throw the football or run,” the 12B student said.

Staying healthy will also be important. In 2017, he missed three games because of a fractured ankle.

He has received scholarship interest from the University of  Guelph and is planning on working hard to put himself in a position to play post-secondary football.

“I need to improve my grades and be more serious about it,” he said. “If I really want it, I have to go and get it and not just be whatever.

“It is all about determination for me.”

The format of this year’s Tier 2 loop will see Collegiate, Thorold, Eden and Governor Simcoe battle it out in regular season play before being joined in the playoffs by the bottom two squads in the Tier 1 loop (Grimsby, Churchill, Myer, Westlane/Stamford, Centennial and Greater Fort Erie).

“I am OK with it because the two teams playing up are going to be challenged throughout the year and there’s difficulty with that,” Greene said. “I can understand and appreciate that and we will see how it goes this year.”

Having that format will allow Collegiate to see where it stacks up against the lower echelon squads in Tier 1.

“Hopefully we can get to a point where we can participate in the upper level at some point, but we are not there yet,” Greene said.