Notre Dame quarterback Steven Moretto was at it again Saturday at the dome. (Gerry Kahrmann, PNG photo)
We’re here for the long haul… five game at B.C. Place Stadium.
Keep checking back with us throughout the day for results and game reports from the semifinal round of the 2016 B.C. high school football playoffs.
NOTRE DAME 20 NEW WESTMINSTER 14
The Notre Dame Jugglers are back in the big dance, looking every bit as imposing as the last time they played for the Subway Bowl triple A high school football championship.
Quarterback Steve Moretto rushed for all three of his touchdowns and the Jugglers established an early tone of domination against the New Westerminster Hyacks’ running game to win 20-14 and earn its first trip to the final since winning it all 23 years ago in 1996.
“This game is important to our community at Notre Dame and you saw how loud our crowd and our alumni were,” said Notre Dame head coach Richard Scott. “Our Grade 8 team is also playing in the finals next Saturday (against Vancouver College) and so it’s going to be crazy at school all week. It’s going to be chaos in the hallways. Good luck trying to teach.”
Once again, Notre Dame presented the best side of itself with fundamentally-sound tackling and big plays just when they needed them, the latter coming from Moretto.’
“He got hit and hit hard, but he just kept getting up,” said Scott of Moretto, whose 60-yard burst late in the third quarter proved to be the difference in the game. “His mere presence helps us, and we’ve been riding his back.”
The Jugglers’ special teams got in on the act early in the game, blocking a Hyacks punt and recovering to gain a short field. Notre Dame capped the drive with a one-yard run into the end zone by Moretto, and the 7-0 lead held the rest of the half.
New Westminster’s efforts to establish a run game were suffocated by the Jugglers over the opening quarter, and although a 35-yard gain by Josh Olango put the Hyacks in their best scoring position of the half, running back Trew Dancey was held shy of the goal line on fourth-and-three from the Jugglers’ four-yard line with 1:49 left to the break.
“We normally start slow on defence but today we started fast,” said Scott. “Today we started fast. We practised so well all week, and the scout team guys, the ones who never get to play, did such a good job as the New Westminster wing-t. They just did a heck of a job to get us ready.”
Moretto scored his second major of the game on first-and-10 from the Hyacks’ 10-yard line.
Shedding tacklers and extending to the goal line, Moretto seemingly willed the ball into the end zone for a 14-0 lead with 4:27 left in the third quarter.
With its offence seemingly stuck in neutral, the Hyacks finally kicked open the doors on a big play, running back Lucas Sabau bursting through the Jugglers’ defence to score on a 60-yard run. Trew Dancey ran in a two-point covert to pull New Westminster within 14-8 with 4:06 left in the third quarter.
Notre Dame’s answered, the long Moretto run, came as he faked a hand-off then sped up the middle, outracing a pair of Hyacks with just under a minute remaining in the third quarter.
New Westminster, forced to gamble at the midway mark of the fourth quarter, elected to keep its offence on the field for a fourth-and-seven from the Jugglers’ 36-yard line. However quarterback Kinsale Philip’s pass, intended for Prento Durigon, was intercepted by Joseph Santalucia.
The Hyacks were able to add a late touchdown on a 16-yard strike from quarterback Philip to Durigon with four seconds left. The on-side kick attempt, however, failed, and the game ended when Moretto took a knee.
“It wasn’t pretty but it doesn’t matter,” said Scott. “New West wanted it every bit as much as we did and they ran hard and hit hard.”
Added Notre Dame linebacker Brendan Woodman: “We worked so hard all week. We’ve all begin together four or five years and we’ve just grown to be brothers.”
The Jugglers will face the winner of Saturday’s late game between South Delta and Terry Fox.
DOUBLE A
SEAQUAM 26 G.W. GRAHAM 7
Needing to rely on the quickness and the big plays which had served them so well throughout the season,
Seaquam used its speed and big plays on the ground and through the air to build a 20-0 halftime lead en route to their victory.
“I thought our kids played with so much heart, and heart really was the theme of our week,” said Mulliss, the Seahawks’ out-going head coach who is just months recovered from sextuple bypass heart surgery. “And I can’t say enough about the way our quarterback Josh Haydu played today.”
The Seahawks took a 6-0 lead, opening the scoring on a three-yard run by quarterback Josh Haydu set up by a 40-yard Jalen Philpot run.
Haydu then hit receiver Terrell Kinch in full stride for an 80-yard catch-and-run score and a 12-0 lead.
Just 35 seconds before halftime, Haydu threw an 11-yard touchdown pass Jalen Philpot, and thew with a two-point convert, made the score 20-0.
“I’m so proud of our whole team and the way we have all worked so hard,” said Haydu.”It’s really amazing how many tools we have to get the ball around the field.”
The two teams took turns handing the ball back to each other to open the second half before the Grizzlies mounted an extended drive, but came up short on a fourth-down pass from the Seaquam six-yard line.
On the very next play, Haydu’s 38-yard completion to Kinch to moved the ball to their own 44-yard line and not too soon after, Seaquam cashed in on fourth-and-goal with a two-yard Jalen Philpot run for a 26-0 lead with 20 seconds left in the third quarter.
G.W. Graham broke its offensive silence two minutes into the fourth quarter on a one-yard scoring run by quarterback Gabe Olivares to pull within 26-7.
With 4:41 remaining, Tyson Philpot put the game out of reach with an interception.
VERNON 21 HUGH BOYD 7
The Vernon Panthers are waiving the flag for every up-country football team in the province.
The No. 1-ranked Panthers played their brand of sound, fundamental football to perfection Saturday at B.C. Place Stadium to top Richmond’s Hugh Boyd Trojans 21-7 in the first of two Subway Bowl B.C. double A semifinals.
The victory proved to be historic for Vernon, which becomes the first team outside the Fraser Valley, Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island regions to qualify for a B.C. senior varsity football final in over two decades.
Kamloops’ Norkam Saints last pulled the feat when they qualified for the 1995 B.C. double A final, losing 38-12 to North Vancouver’s Windsor Dukes.
The last up-country team to win the B.C. title were the Kamloops Secondary Red Devils, who who beat all comers including the Centennial Centaurs 36-8 in the 1986.
Vernon awaits the winner of Saturday’s second semifinal between Seaquam and G.W. Graham.
“I didn’t know my history but I do know that we’ve been battling hard for this a long time,” said Vernon head coach Sean Smith, who was battling just as hard to hold back his tears. “Our kids have so much grit because that was a heck of a football team that we just beat there. They are big, they are strong and they are fast. We made just enough offensive plays to get it done.”
And, it should be noted, one huge defensive play that wound up being the game’s biggest difference maker.
The Trojans had kept Vernon off the scoreboard for almost the entire third quarter, a span in which they blocked two Panthers field goals, and trailed the Okanagan school 14-7.
But after blocking the second field goal, the Trojans wound up surrendering what would be the game’s final score.
Trojans’ quarterback Tyler Moxin, passing out of his own end zone, had his passed tipped into the air by Charles Lemay of the Panthers. The resulting deflection went right into the arms of a charging Bradley Hladik, who took it into the end zone from about 15 yards out for the score.
The play was a huge contrast to the week previous, when in a quarterfinal win over Ballenas, he tipped a ball on defence right into the hands of a Whaler who took it in for the Parksville team’s only score.
“It couldn’t have been any different,” Hladik said. “It was unreal. I was just saying to me ‘Come on Charles, tip it’ and he did.”
Vernon continued to make big plays the rest of the way against a Hugh Boyd team that was up for the task but simply couldn’t create breaks for itself and match the big plays turned in by the Panthers.
Panthers’ Riley Bos saved a touchdown with 7:29 remaining when he made a last-second tip to deflect the ball away, averting what looked to be a sure score.
With 4:56 remaining, Moxin’s pass to the Robbie Conroy at the goal line, deflected off of Conroy and right into the hands of Hladik, who returned it 30 yards the other way to snuff a scoring attempt.
The Panthers opened up a quick 14-0 lead, with quarterback Thomas Hyett throwing short touchdown passes of eight yards to Bradley Hladik and nine yards to older brother Ben Hladik.
The Trojans were able to cut the lead in half with 5:25 remaining in the first half as quarterback Tyler Moxin scored on a third-down one-yard sneak.
Hugh Boyd was later unable to convert on a fourth-and-goal from the Vernon 14-yard line with nine seconds left in the first half.
“This means everything to our team and our coaches,” said Ben Hladik of the victory. “We’ve haven’t taken a day off.”
Added Vernon lineman Jackson Ponipal: “It’s just such a huge accomplishment. There is so much competition on the coast, but we’re finally the team to come in here and try to take it all this year.”
PITT MEADOWS 33 ERIC HAMBER 14
The Pitt Meadows Marauders are B.C. high school Tier 2 provincial champions.
Powered by a tenacious defence which regularly wreaked havoc in the opposition’s offensive backfield and a two-headed running attack, the Marauders topped Vancouver’s Eric Hamber Griffins 33-14.
Pitt Meadows went ahead 27-7 when Brandon Hunt scored on a four-yard touchdown run after Haydn Barton blocked an Eric Hamber punt at the Griffins’ 15-yard line.
Midway through the fourth quarter pivot Tato Ferreyro threw a 30-yard touchdown strike to Tayden Mountford for a 33-6 lead.
The Griffins rallied with a 30-yard touchdown strike from quarterback Cedrick Henderson to Sebastian Kondratowski. The two-point convert was successful and that made it 33-14.
Eric Hamber was able to get to first-and-goal early in the first quarter but turned the ball over after some determined goal-line defence by the Marauders.
Pitt Meadows countered with a five-yard Barton touchdown run on the first play of the second quarter and soon after Hunt went in on a three-yard run for a 13-0 lead.
Eric Hamber answered when quarterback Cedrick Henderson and receiver Arthur Lee hooked up in big-play fashion.
First, Henderson went 41 yard to Lee, then tossed a 12-yard TD strike to his favourite target with 3:23 left in the half to make it 13-6.
Barton’s second major of the half, this one from two yards out, made it 20-6 with 27 seconds left in the half.
On the final play of the half, Henderson’s 40-yard Hail Mary into the end zone was almost caught by receiver Callum Oxley, who pounded the turf in frustration.
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