Stangs win COSSA AA senior title
16th COSSA championship in 19 years for retiring coach Shane Oldfield
It seemed fitting that Shane Oldfield would walk off a high school football field for the last time as a COSSA champion.
The Crestwood Mustangs head coach is retiring at the end of the school year and his team gave him a parting gift in the COSSA AA senior final in Belleville on Wednesday afternoon.
Crestwood defeated the St. Theresa Titans 25-15 improving Oldfield’s record to 16-1 in COSSA games during his 29-year coaching career. He’s spent the past 19 years at Crestwood after 10 seasons at Peterborough Collegiate. He’s also been to 12 OFSAA or National Capital Bowl games with Crestwood winning five.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Oldfield, 55.
“We wanted to win and be successful and we did that. I’m definitely going to miss coaching with Garth (Scott), Roger (Jenkins) and Barry (McCamus) and all the coaches in the past who I have coached with. I’ve got some really fond memories of all the coaches I have coached with and all the players. You really develop great relationships with a lot of the players. I still maintain contact with some of them. It’s going to be hard giving that up but it’s time to move on.”
Zach Aucoin kicked a 25-yard field goal to put Crestwood on top but St. Theresa responded to lead 7-3. Kurt Cantello scored on a quarterback sneak set up by a 65-yard passing play to Owen Petersen. Cantello added another short TD to cap a long drive. The Mustangs made it 24-7 at halftime on a 40 yard pass an run to Alex Vassiliadis. Trevor Davis recorded a single on a missed field goal in the second half. St. Theresa scored a pair of late majors with many of Crestwood’s starters on the bench.
“Our offence really moved the ball well,” Oldfield said.
“Defensively, we struggled early and gave up a long drive and then we settled down after that and played very well defensively. They surprised us with a couple of fake punts and things like that which kind of fooled us. For the most part, it was our offence which played well for us.”
Oldfield threw out a thank you to a longtime rival coach Vik Kulla from Thomas A. Stewart and for many years prior at Adam Scott. Kulla’s team was originally scheduled to play St. Theresa and he broke down game tape and had extensive notes on them. When Eastside opted on Monday to play TASSS instead of Crestwood, they had the option to play AAA or AA as Quinte champions, Kulla sent his notes to Oldfield.
“It was very kind of Vik to do that,” Oldfield said.
The Mustangs were disappointed to lose to TASSS in the Kawartha final on Saturday and Oldfield said he thinks it affected his team’s performance.
“It was a bit of a letdown for our guys,” he said. “I think the guys weren’t, perhaps, as pumped as they should have been going into a AA COSSA as opposed to a AAA COSSA. I have to give our guys credit. They still managed to pull out the victory.”