Holy Trinity Titans on a roll going into varsity football playoffs
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Playoffs begin Friday for the top four teams in the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Non-CWOSSA Varsity Football League.
Holy Trinity Catholic School Titans (4-1) host the Delhi District Secondary School Raiders (2-3) Friday at 12 p.m. in Simcoe.
McKinnon Park Secondary School Blue Devils (4-1) host Simcoe Composite School Sabres (3-2) at 2 p.m. in Caledonia.
In the final week of the regular season last Friday, Week 5 saw an upset as Waterford District High School Wolves won its first game of the season coming from behind to defeat Simcoe Sabres 27-26 after trailing 26-14 in the fourth quarter.
“Waterford came on strong in the fourth quarter,” said SCS vice-principal Matthew Malcolm.
Friday’s semifinal in Caledonia will be a rematch from Week 4 when McKinnon Park defeated the Sabres 20-14, after Simcoe had won its first three.
“They (SCS) are going to have to want it bad,” said Malcolm.
Holy Trinity rolled to a 44-6 win over Brantford’s Pauline Johnson CVS Friday, winning their third consecutive game to finish on top of the regular season standings.
“It was really good, our team came to play and executed pretty much on every play,” said Titans coach Tyler Backus, noting they were able to use second and third-string players, including Grade 9s, in the second half.
“We’re healthy going into playoffs, which is nice too,” said Backus. “We’ve got a couple kids that are just coming off injuries, which is good. We’re rolling right now, everything’s feeling pretty good at practices.”
It was a rainy day for football which limited their passing game, said Backus.
“We’re working on a lot of different offensive schemes, as well, but we didn’t really want to mix them in with the weather. So we’ll save them for this week.”
On Oct. 6, in Week 3, Holy Trinity downed McKinnon Park 19-7, rebounding from a Week 2 loss at SCS.
“McKinnon Park was a solid game, they were very physical and they’ve got a quarterback that can really throw the ball,” said Backus.
McKinnon Park defeated the Raiders 38-6 in Delhi Friday.
“We took some lumps, but we saw a couple good things,” said Delhi coach David Leatherland. “We’re still growing as a team – and that’s a positive – and of course there are some things we need to work on. Our kids worked hard, just came up on the short end of the stick.”
It was wet and rainy the entire game, Leatherland noted, which made it challenging for the offence.
“Caledonia scored on three special team plays – two kick returns and a punt return.”
The Raiders, who won a decisive 14-12 game at Pauline Johnson in Week 4 to grab the fourth seed, are the underdogs going into Friday’s noon semifinal at Holy Trinity.
“You keep working hard, good things will happen,” said Leatherland. “No one’s expecting much from us, but we’re going to go in there and work hard and see what we can do. That’s one thing about our guys, we never have to worry about their effort level – they work hard.”
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