Knights, Cardinals are bowl-bound

Two Hamilton teams, familiar opponents of each other, have qualified for the three-day OFSAA Football Bowls festival, which opens at Tim Hortons Field next Monday morning.

St. Thomas More Knights, ranked No. 5 in the country, dismantled Oakville’s Holy Trinity Titans, 42-18, in a GHAC semifinal at St. Thomas More on Tuesday afternoon. Holy Trinity, champions of the new Halton Catholic League, had been ranked 10th in Canada coming into the game, the first week that they’d been selected in the nation’s top 10.

The Knights, who won OFSAA’s Eastern Bowl last year, will kick off the nine-game OFSAA Football Bowls championships with a 10 a.m. start Monday against Toronto St. Michael’s, in the Independent Bowl.

As the host association, GHAC has two berths in the OFSAA Football Bowls and sends both semifinal winners to the seasonending festival.

In Tuesday’s other GHAC semifinal, at Nelson Stadium in Burlington, Hamilton’s Cardinal Newman Cardinals defeated Nelson, 40-3, avenging last year’s 16-13 loss to the Lords in the GHAC semifinal.

The Cardinals advance to the Golden Horseshoe Bowl on Wednesday against Welland’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish. They had been ranked No. 18 two weeks ago, but fell to No. 34 after losing to St. Thomas More in their league final last week. The Golden Horseshoe Bowl is the only one of the nine games that will be played at night. It goes at 7 p.m. Tuesday and will be televised on Cable 14.

The Hamilton public school champions, the Sir Allan MacNab Lions (No. 15), were eliminated from OFSAA contention with a 42-18 loss to No. 14 Welland Notre Dame at McMaster on Tuesday. The Fighting Irish had upset Niagara Falls A.N. Myer, then rated No. 5 in Canada, in regional play last week. Notre Dame qualifies for its first OFSAA Bowl in 12 years.

There are three games Monday, four Tuesday, and two Wednesday.

A number of other teams from the country’s top 50, as ranked by canadafootballchat.com, will be in Hamilton for the nine bowl games.

Some are still qualifying, but nationally-ranked teams that have already confirmed berths in the OFSAA Bowls, Nov. 27-29, include Newmarket Huron Heights (No. 8), Courtice Holy Trinity (18), Innisfil Nantyr Shores (24), Mississauga Lorne Park (29), Ottawa St. Matthew’s (37), and North Bay West Ferris (40).