As the running game unfolds over 400 yards, the Korah Colts won their fifth straight city title in the process.
They hadn’t played for 21 days and their last outing was a loss against the team they faced for a city championship.
With their running game entrenched at times in their previous meeting, the Korah Colts ran the ball for 450 yards en route to a 37-15 victory over the St. Mary’s Knights Friday night in Superior Heights to claim the title. high school football city.
The previous game was a 15-14 loss to the Knights on Oct. 7.
“We struggled to get the ball running against them the last time we played them,” Colts coach Tom Annett said. “They did different things against us, but if you give our staff time to work on that and our players to represent it, we were lucky to get the double bye. We found a few ways to take advantage of what they were doing. We ran the ball really hard.
Annett called the extra time between games “weird”.
“Our staff have done a very good job of management,” added Annett. “We boosted the first week, then pulled back the second week, then boosted.”
Annett added that a big part of their preparation included St. Mary’s beating Superior Heights in last week’s semi-final.
“We defended their passing game well,” Annett said. “They have so many athletes and they throw so much, they’re going to get finishes, but overall we did a good job bending a bit but not breaking.”
Annett also said the loss to St. Mary’s “did eat away at our fifth-year players a bit.”
For the Knights, coach Jim Monica said he felt the Colts were the best team in the game.
“I said coming in, whoever played better was going to win and tonight they were the best team,” Monica said. “We just couldn’t leave the pitch in defense and when we were in attack we executed in spots, but not consistently.”
After falling behind in the first quarter, the Knights signed on midway through the second quarter, but a flurry of offense from the Colts after the Knights took the lead was crucial.
“We go up 7-6 and then they score again and we think ‘Okay, 13-7 at half time, that’s not bad’ and then they got another one and end up getting a bad punt from clearance and they come back and get a field goal and then it’s 23-7 at half time,” Monica said. “We moved the ball a bit to start the second half but we couldn’t just don’t hit it. The defense couldn’t get off the pitch and we couldn’t stay on the pitch consistently, that’s what it boils down to,” Monico added.
Korah opened the scoring as Jesse Burella kicked the ball 33 yards to put the Colts up 6-0 midway through the first quarter.
Jaiden Trudeau caught a 16-yard touchdown pass from Matti Tucker to put St. Mary’s midway through the second quarter. With converted Daniel Bumbaco, the Knights took a 7-6 lead.
With just over three minutes left in the second quarter, Korah headed for the St. Mary’s 2-yard line after a 51-yard pass from Ronan Provenzano to Gabe Byron.
On the next play, Burella threw the ball for the touchdown. With Koski’s convert, the Colts regained the lead by a 13-7 margin.
In the last minute of the half, Provenzano kicked the ball 15 yards out. The convert from Koski made Korah 20-7.
Koski had a 16-yard field goal to send the game into the half with Korah leading 23-7.
Just under 90 seconds into the fourth quarter, Kaylob Thibodeau kicked the ball 13 yards. With Koski’s convert, Korah took the lead by a 30-7 margin.
Thibodeau notched his second major of the night on a four-yard run with 2:17 to go. Koski’s convert made it 37-7.
A 62-yard passing play from Tucker to Bumbaco brought the ball to Korah’s 5-yard line.
Bumbaco then threw the ball for a touchdown on the next play. Tucker’s two-point convert made it 37-15.
Burella finished the day with 158 rushing yards for Korah on 20 carries while Thibodeau had 169 on 15 carries.
Defensively for the Colts, Lucas Malcolm had six tackles. Logan McGregor added four tackles and an interception.
Tucker had 244 yards for the Knights, completing 17 of 33 pass attempts in the game.
Bumbaco caught four passes for St. Mary’s for 91 yards in the game.
Defensively for St. Mary’s, Nick Carter had 7.5 tackles while Brandon Vecchio had 6.5 and Seamus Parlow had six.
The Colts will play a Northern Ontario Secondary School Athletics (NOSSA) semi-final on the road against the City of North Bay champion on Nov. 5. The winner of that game will then host the champion Sudbury the following week for NOSSA. Title.
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