Thunder rally past Mustangs
Blessed Trinity running back Jayden Gurzi-MacDonald was standing on the sidelines getting a cut on his arm attended to when he was approached by a member of the Thunder coaching staff.
“I think we might need you for some plays on defence,” the coach said.
Gurzi-MacDonald didn’t hesitate for a second, quickly blurting out his answer.
“Whatever you need me to do,” the 17-year-old, Grade 12 student said.
Gurzi-MacDonald’s leadership and talent were front and centre Thursday as he scored three touchdowns and added a pair of two-point rushing converts as the Thunder rallied to defeat the Saint Michael Mustangs 35-21 in Niagara Catholic Athletic Association senior boys football action at St. Mike’s.
“It’s great. We were playing against some of our old coaches and we knew this was going to be a good game because Saint Mike’s definitely did some work in the off season and came out with a much improved team,” Gurzi-MacDonald said. “I don’t think we started how we should but it’s all about you finish.”
Gurzi-MacDonald, who plays for the Niagara Spears in the summer, takes his role as a leader very seriously.
“It’s important because you need someone else for the younger guys who are the future of this program to look at and think I want to be like that and see this is how you lead a football team and how you conduct yourself,” he said. “It helps (playing Spears) because all I do is eat, sleep and train football. I love this game.”
BT coach Sean Jones is well aware how special a talent Gurzi-MacDonald is and of his importance to the Thunder football program.
“He’s huge. His athleticism is huge, obviously. His ability to ignite our offence and inspire other guys to play well — he’s a special athlete who does a lot of special things for us,” Jone said. “It’s (leadership) one of the things we talked about, our veteran guys and talented guys setting the example because we do have a lot of younger players and we do want them to be able to look up to those guys and see that’s how football is played.”
The Thunder, who improved to 2-0 after defeating Saint Francis last week in the season opener, fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter but tied the game at 14-14 by halftime.
“Me, my teammates, and even the other team, didn’t have very good composure at the start of the game and it literally took one time of Mr. Jones looking back to us and saying, ‘Play our game and don’t say, anything, just have good sportsmanship.’ I think we all had a little bit of nerves and excitement and we just needed to become level-headed throughout the game,” Gurzi-MacDonald said.
Jones was thrilled to see his players bounce back from a poor start.
“Very proud of our guys. We had a lot of hiccups in that first quarter. It looked like the first game (of the season) even though it’s the second game. We challenged our guys to overcome it and play as well as they’re capable of playing and they responded very well,” he said.
Mustangs quarterback Austin MacRae injured his knee early, hampering his mobility.
“Our quarterback took a helmet to the knee and at this point of the season when your quarterback goes down it’s very difficult,” Saint Mike’s coach Brian Carter said. “You lose a lot of plays you can run effectively and the timing is down. Any big players going down early in the season is always detrimental to an offence’s momentum.
“They ran the ball well, we didn’t tackle well and we gave up big plays and you can’t give up big plays and win football games and we took a lot of penalties and you can’t win that way as well.”
The Mustangs fell to 1-1 after topping Denis Morris last week.
“We’re going to keep teaching the kids — we have a lot of kids who don’t play football for nine months of the year and then they come out and play. We’ll get them up to pace by the end of November and hopefully see these guys in the playoffs,” Carter said.
STATS PACK
Thunder 35 Mustangs 21
Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game: Blessed Trinity’s Jayden Gurzi-MacDonald with three touchdowns and a pair of two-point converts rushing.
Blessed Trinity Thunder: Gurzi-MacDonald 3 TDs, 2 2-point coverts; Aidan Sartor TD; Mikhael Pegg TD; Thomas Kelly convert.
Saint Michael Mustangs: Luka Cuthbert 2 TDs; Jake Salvator TD; Max Marinas 3 converts.
Up next: The Thunder host the Denis Morris Reds Wednesday, Oct. 4 at Noon. The Mustangs visit Saint Paul, Thursday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m.
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