Sideline visit from former star Claypool pumps up Panthers
The Abbotsford Panthers had a special guest on their sidelines last week.
Panthers product Chase Claypool, a wide receiver in his senior season with the famed Notre Dame Fighting Irish, was back in town during the NCAA team’s bye week to check out Abbotsford’s home game against the Terry Fox Ravens on Friday.
“It was huge for our guys,” said Panthers coach Jay Fujimura. “Everyone looks up to him and what he’s done. It’s great to see how he’s grown. He’s become even more of a role model and a leader.”
Now in Triple A, the Panthers were competing as a Double A entry in Claypool’s Grade 12 year in 2015, when he helped lead them to the provincial final, where they lost 53-34 to North Vancouver’s Carson Graham Eagles. That season, he led B.C.’s two senior tiers in receiving yards (1,473) and touchdown catches (18) over 12 games. All told, he finished with 2,514 all-purpose yards and 29 overall TDs.
Notre Dame is 5-1 on the season and is No. 8 in The Associated Press U.S. rankings. They’re at No. 19-ranked Michigan on Saturday. The 6-foot-4, 229-pound Claypool leads the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in receptions (27), receiving yards (394) and TD catches (four).
PANTHERS ON THE MEND
Abbotsford beat Port Coquitlam’s Terry Fox 28-6 to improve to 3-2 in league play. In this year of great parity in Triple A
football, they’re a team to watch, due to their running game led by Jalem Catlin. He returned to the Panthers lineup against the Ravens after sitting out the past game with a high-ankle sprain and rushed for 123 yards and a TD.
Even with his time on the sidelines, Catlin leads all Triple A rushers with 1,333 yards. He has scored 12 TDs.
Catlin could be especially dangerous in Subway Bowl playoff action in the climate-controlled confines at B.C. Place Stadium.
“We’d like to get on that surface,” said Fujimura.
KNIGHTS ON THE MEND
Speaking of teams and injuries, the St. Thomas More Knights are having themselves an intriguing year.
Burnaby’s STM had to call off a Sept. 13 exhibition game at halftime against the Vancouver College Fighting Irish due to a shortage of players. The Knights came into the game missing 10 starters, including four who play on both sides of the ball, due to injury and illness, and then had more players end up needing medical attention.
“I found myself putting a player who had never played running back in at running back, and I had an offensive lineman at linebacker,” said STM coach Steve De Lazzari. “It hurts your pride and your ego, but it was a safety decision to call the game. It was about the risk of getting more players injured.”
STM started to get healthy after that Vancouver College encounter, and they have yet to lose since that matchup with the Fighting Irish. They carry a 5-0 league mark into a Friday contest with the Centennial Centaurs of Coquitlam.
There could be more reinforcements coming, too. Running back Marc Abboud, a Grade 12 student who was expected to carry much of the ground game load this season, broke his leg in an Aug. 30 season-opening exhibition game in Hawaii and De Lazzari says he might be ready for STM’s regular-season finale Nov. 1 against Surrey’s Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers.
STM has Triple A’s second-leading rusher in Grade 11 student Nick Osho, who has rambled for 1,199 yards on the ground.
“It would just give us even more options,” De Lazzari said of the possible pairing of Abboud and Osho.