College Heights trounces Kelly Road
It was only an exhibition game but the College Heights Cougars came to the B.C. High School Football Northern Conference doubleA varsity football field armed and loaded.
They dug deep into their arsenal and came at the Kelly Road Runners from all directions in a 35-6 win on a crisp and breezy Sunday afternoon at College Heights field.
Conner Adams plucked the Roadrunners for two touchdown runs, both of which covered about 40 yards. Matthew Kim, Brandon Metcalf and Mitchell Lukoni also ran the ball into the end zone.
“We have a lot of weapons, there’s no team really that can match up with us at all,” said Cougars head coach Brad Paakkonen.
“If you want to double (team) one guy we’ll just throw it to someone else and I dare teams to try to find any matchup that’s suitable for them.
“We don’t have a lot of depth but we do have a lot of experience, a lot of my guys have been with me for four or five years and Kelly Road is just building again.”
All the Cougars’ scoring happened in the first half. Adams’s second score came after Gage Prince intercepted a T.J. Nyberg pass and ran it back to the Roadrunners’ 38-yard line.
The Cougars certainly don’t have an abundance of players and injuries left them with only five or six reserves on the sidelines Sunday, from a roster of 20. What they do have is a core group of players who have been together for the better part of four years. They took their lumps the past two seasons getting pushed around by the Duchess Park Condors and Prince George Polars. Those days are done.
It’s the Cougars putting the bite out of their opponents now. They opened the season with a 21-16 win over the Nechako Valley Vikings in Vanderhoof, then steamrolled the Condors 59-13 two weeks ago at Kelly Road field.
“We didn’t have the greatest game, we have a lot of stuff to work on – we have four five guys injured and we are low on numbers, but we have a lot of talent,” said Lukoni, who also plays at defensive end, one of six seniors on the Cougar roster.
“I’d say our defence held pretty well until the last little bit there. I feel we can get a shutout next game.”
Kelly Road (0-1) has played just one regular-season game, losing 23-6 to PGSS on Sept. 17. The Cougars weren’t about go easy on them and linebacker Gabe Gillcrest and junior varsity callup Josh Joseph made that point clear a few times with their brick-wall mentality putting the hurt on Kelly Road ball carriers.
The Roadrunners stopped a fourth-down gamble for College Heights and took over the ball on downs deep in Cougar territory, which led to their only scoring play.
Kelly Road receiver Logan Devauld, all of five-foot-five, 130 pounds, hooked up with quarterback Nyberg for a rapidlydeveloping 12-yard TD catch with about eight minutes left. That gave the Kelly Road boys something to build on, a glimmer of hope for more of the same when they play the Cougars again next Sunday.
“This game we were giving them lots of lanes in the first half that we shouldn’t have and we cleaned that up in the second half, so we just have to start out strong in that aspect and keep killing it,” said Roadrunners outside linebacker Justin Richard, who had two QB sacks. “Hard work beats talent. Next year we‚ll have more seniors but we’ve got to make this year count.”
The Roadrunners did not have senior team last year and have just two Grade 12s – Cameron Taylor and Nikita Korabov. Like the Cougars, they turned to their junior varsity team to fill in for some injured players.
The Roadrunners came out revived for the second half. They applied the pressure on Cougars Grade 11 quarterback Oak Adams and had him on the run a few times in the backfield. Trenton Griffiths knocked the ball out of the Cougar pivot’s hand in the third quarter and Runners lineman Clay Thiessen recovered the fumble but they were unable to move the ball into scoring range on the ensuing drive.
“I didn’t expect their defence to be that good,” said Adams, who admitted it wasn’t his best day at the office, despite having a hand in five touchdowns. “I was getting blown up a lot, just getting hit, but we pulled through.
“We have a lot of talent. We have a big fullback (Gillcrest) who can just bust through there and we’ve got guys some speedy guys at receiver so we always have options. Our running (Conner Adams) busted through a couple times.”
The Cougars and Roadrunners meet in a game that counts in the standings Sunday at 12:30 p.m. at College Heights. Head coach Ryan Bellamy says they will have some of the regular linemen back for Sunday and might have starting quarterback Josiah Harder back in uniform. He’s been sidelined the past two weeks with a hairline fracture in his arm.
“We’ll be better able to match up with them next week size-wise,” said Bellamy.
“We’ve good systems and good athletes, it‚s just being able to get guys in the right spots and not asking them to play out of position in a game like this.”
Nechako Valley hosts PGSS Saturday at 3 p.m. in Vanderhoof.
The other Northern Conference team, Duchess Park, has a bye this week.
We don’t have a lot of depth but we do have a lot of experience, a lot of my guys have been with me for four or five years and Kelly Road is just building again. — Brad Paakkonen, Cougars head coach