Spears dull versus Lions
Unbeaten season ends with loss in conference final
The Niagara Spears varsity football team saw its unbeaten Ontario Varsity Football League season come to a disappointing halt Saturday night with a 45-7 loss to the visiting Cambridge Lions in the Adams Conference championship game.
The Spears came into the game with a 9-0 record while Cambridge was 7-2.
“It’s really poor timing to have our worst game of the season, but we had a really good season that we can hold our heads high (about),” Spears head coach Brian Duguay said. “We would like to wish all the players best of luck in their future endeavours be it at CIS (Canadian Interuniversity Sport), CJFL (Canadian Junior Football League) or high school.
“Just don’t take things for granted and work hard in everything you do.”
In Saturday’s game, the Lions built a 27-0 half-time lead and never looked back.
“The Lions showed in the first three series they were hungry and ready to play,” Duguay said. “We just couldn’t match or out-work them.”
He felt the Lions were able to dictate the tempo of game.
“Hate to say (but) they wanted it more,” Duguay said.
The Lions built a 45-0 lead before the Spears scored late when Travis Arp connected with Keagan Oshust for a 14-yard scoring strike.
“We have to give credit to Cambridge who executed and outplayed us,” Duguay said. “We had a lot of brain farts where it gave the Lions the opportunity to capitalize on our mistakes in all three phases of the game.”
Top offensive performers for the Spears were: Tre Ford, 11-34 passing for 93 yards and four rushes for 11 yards; Arp, 3-5 in the air for 45 yards and a major; Jack Gelbart, nine catches for 88 yards; and, Oshust, three catches for 38 yards and a touchdown.
Top defensive players for the Spears were: Jack Andrews, five assists, five solo tackles, and a pair of assisted sacks; Teddy Mansell, five assists, five solo tackles and two assisted sacks; Anthony Federico, three assists, one solo tackle, one assisted sack, two sacks and a batted ball; Mike Domanico, three assisted tackles and one solo tackle; and, Sandor Mod, three assisted tackles and one solo tackle.
Outlaws 33 Junior Spears 19
For the second straight season, the Orangeville Outlaws ended the Niagara Spears junior varsity football team’s Ontario Minor Football League’s season.
This season, a slow start saw the Spears fall 33-19 on the road to the Outlaws.
“We executed our game plan perfectly in the second half, but we just took too long to get started,” Spears head coach Larry Bone said. “A few missed opportunities in the first half left us playing catch up and against good teams, you just can’t do that.”
Bone liked the second-half effort by his squad.
“We didn’t quit and we made it a game, but we just couldn’t dig out of that hole,” he said.
Isiaha Petrella lead the Spears attack with 69 rushing yards, a rushing major, 169 receiving yards and a receiving touchdown. Jeremy Nyambia caught a 46-yard TD pass from Ethan Reid, who finished 10-19 passing for 259 yards and two majors.
Defensively, the Spears were lead by Zack Melnyk with 10 tackles and a sack. Jacob Snider with 8.5 tackles and Owen Jones, who contributed 7.5 tackles.
Lions 30 Bantam Spears 30
The Niagara Spears bantam football team lost 30-20 to the Cambridge Lions in the OVFL division final.
John Serrano and Jacob Succar each ran for touchdowns for the Spears and Serrano also caught a TD pass from Michael Craig. Zack Bechard and Connor Miller had strong defensive games for Niagara.
The weekend’s losses by the Spears ended a highly successful season for the travel football program. Niagara teams made three conference finals and one semifinal.