Gemini win Varsity A championship
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The Gemini football torch has been passed to a new generation of champions.
"Awesome, it was awesome," said Grade 12 Gemini co-captain Greg Vanwynsberghe after Glendale HS shut out London Westminster 22-0 to win the 2013 TVRA Varsity A championship Thursday afternoon in Tillsonburg. "It was a great game.
"It's been... since '98 we last won? So it's definitely a big boost and I'm really happy for our boys. Our coach, Mr. (Lee) Janzen especially, he's been looking for a victory for so long. We just worked and worked and worked all year. Very happy that we got the victory."
The '98 team Vanwynsberghe referenced had ended a similar drought when they beat St. Thomas Parkside 26-22 to win the Oxford-Elgin Senior Bowl Game, a team that included 2013 Tillsonburg Sports Hall of Fame inductee Mike Black. The Gemini had last won a senior O-E title in 1984.
Thursday's championship was Glendale's first-ever varsity football title. Until 2013, Glendale and Annandale (when it was a high school) had played Junior and Senior football going back to the Tillsonburg District High School days, an era pre-dating both high schools in the early 1950s, and its 1940s predecessor Tillsonburg High School.
"When we started in this varsity league, we thought – we all thought – we were going to get smoked," admitted Vanwynsberghe. "All of us. We all thought there's no way we're going to be able to come out with a Bowl here. The first game came along and our team came together. We played football – that's how we do it. We realized we had a good squad, built big momentum, and we said, 'you know what, let's just take this league out, show them what we can do.'"
"It's a great feeling," said Gemini safety Shaine Jansen. "Coming into the season we had no idea we'd go 9-0 and win the championship. At the start of the season we thought we were just going to be run over. We did not see this coming at all. This was a big eye-opener, I think, for a lot of guys.
"We came together as a team more this year, believed in each other more than in prior years, trusted each other to make big plays when we needed to. I think we've got one of the scariest linebackers in this league – Oscar Reddecop. We call Oscar the Ray Lewis of our team – you can hear his footsteps, that's for sure. And Troy (Lamoure), he had a lot of big plays this year – it helped a lot with those sacks, putting pressure on the quarterback. They're a big part of this team."
"I've got heart," said Reddecop, laughing at 'scary'. "My mindset improved and I've been in the gym a lot this year. I just don't stop my legs."
"Off the bat, I do think we were pretty intimidated going into a new division," said quarterback Colton Lanthier. "We probably would have had more younger guys coming out if it was still a junior-senior program. It was the intimidation factor – I know, as a Grade 11, I was intimidated going into varsity. Going from junior to senior is one thing, but junior to varsity... you could play anybody. You could come up against some huge Grade 9 or some small Grade 13.
"It's kind of a learning process," said Lanthier. "I think we're going to have a really good team next year. I've heard from some of the Grade 12s they'll be coming back for a victory lap. That, and all of us Grade 11s staying around. Hopefully it'll be a great season just like this year. Finish off with another undefeated season. We were the new guys, the underdogs this year. But they'll know us next year – you don't go undefeated and go unnoticed. Next year we'll be the guys with the target on our backs."
"I know for a fact, four years from now we are going to win another Bowl," Vanwynsberghe predicted, "because our junior team is amazing. They just have so much co-operation and dedication."
On the way to an undefeated regular season, the Gemini shut out Westminster 8-0 and mauled St. Thomas Central Elgin 27-3, the defending varsity champs.
"When we played Central they were warning us about this guy who was Team Ontario or something," said Vanwynsberghe. "What that did was give us massive motivation and a confidence boost. We just said, 'we're going to knock this guy on his butt.' That's pretty much what we did."
In playoffs Glendale dispatched Ingersoll 33-7, setting up Thursday's A Final against Westminster, a team known for its daunting defence.
"We took some of our offensive plays and switched them up a little bit – ran a lot of reverses, fake reverses, things like that. What they were beating us on defence, we switched around so we beat them on offence. We just rocked them. Our quarterback (Colton Lanthier), a really smart player, when he goes up to the line and sees something wrong, he calls it out. So I think a really big, big boost today was our quarterback and our runningback (Kyle Sinden). They played awesome."
"We played them (Westminster) earlier in the year and we figured out their style," noted Reddecop.
"We had a really intense week of practice," said Lanthier. "We threw in some new stuff. And we did our best to imitate their 'D' and then work around it. Just guesstimated and do whatever we could. You do what you got to do.
"Kyle got the second touchdown kind of bouncing all over the place, doing whatever he could to get in there," said Lanthier, who scored the first TD on a quarterback sneak. "We had a couple safeties here and there."
Jansen sealed it late in the fourth quarter with an interception he returned 70-plus yards for a touchdown.
"We were playing zone," said Jansen, who picked off a Westminster pass that had been underthrown by at least 5-10 yards. "It kind of came down to me, I didn't really have to jump. Twenty-three was his main receiver, so when he was on that side I kind of watched where he was going."
Jansen had 20 yards of open field to gain speed, and when it closed up he had to cut back to find room.
"The guys walked through and left it open," said Jansen, crediting the blockers. "Oh yeah, some big blocks. There was a little spot I had to weave through, then it was open field from there.
"My first pick-six, ever," said Jansen, who had nine interceptions through the season.
A quarterback last year, Jansen, now in Grade 12, was ill for the first week of practices and gave up the position to Lanthier, last year's junior QB. When the season started, Jansen was unsure where he fit in.
"As soon as I played defence, I felt like it was better for me. I love safety. I wouldn't go back to quarterback now. At safety, you're there to hit a guy and you have a team to back you up."
FIELD DAMAGE
Last-minute all-day field repairs put Glendale's field back into game-shape Wednesday. Vandals had struck overnight digging holes near centre field and around the goal-posts.
"There was a lot of talk about it considering the field got dug up yesterday," said Vanwynsberghe. "A lot of social media. It was a mystery – somebody came and tore it up.
"Our coaches sat us down as a team, and we said, the only thing to do is beat them. And we beat them. We took it out there, we played Gemini football - really good, respectful football – and that's what we're all about in Tburg."