Warriors, Cardinals put on their game faces

Warriors, Cardinals put on their game faces

Columns

By: John Cudmore

Until now, it’s all been rehearsal.

On Saturday, the real season starts for the Huron Heights Warriors and Brother Andre Cardinals who will settle the York Region Athletic Association senior football title once and for all.

Unfortunately, for one of the two, it’ll be a short one.

The three-time defending champion Warriors and Cardinals finished the regular season in a dead heat at 6-0-1, a coin-toss required to determine the on-paper No. 1. The lone splotch for both was a 26-26 tie in the season opener way back in mid-September.

Ever since, the two sides have been eyeballing the one other while ripping up the rest of the league. Ripping it up real bad to the point it might be wondered if this lopsidedness might prove one day the death blow for high school football in the region.  

The gap is becoming that wide and, it ought to be noted, player numbers in some high schools are fading badly, too.

But let’s stay on topic.

There is the sneaking notion, and perhaps rightfully so, that BA will have to be on the very tip-top of its game and Huron will have to bring something less than its A-version for the three-time defending champions to be dethroned.

But Heath Weir, whose arrival at Huron Heights coincided with the turnaround of the program, will entertain none of that line of thinking in front of the title clash.

“We understand BA will be jacked to the nines to win the YRAA. But our kids are jacked and want to win, too,” said Weir, officially the Warriors’ offensive co-ordinator, but very much the pulse of the squad at game time.

“I think the mistake people make about us is they figure we’re arrogant and cocky. But we prepare for each team in the same way. I’m probably the most nervous guy around on game day because I’m always figuring what could go wrong.”

And that’s even when the outcome is pretty much a foregone conclusion. But given that funny things can happen in a 48-minute football game, well, you know how that plays out.

“This year we had to look no further than the last game against BA,” said Weir. “That was a wake-up call that we can be better. Maybe it was the best thing to happen all year to us. If it hadn’t happened, we may not be where we are now. It made everyone look in the mirror to see what they could do better.”

Huron, with an average of 45 points per game — remember it received credit only for 21 points in a forfeited win by Maple Timberwolves — and Brother Andre with 37 points scored per outing are easily heads and shoulders above the opposition in the YRAA league. Truthfully, there was not a solid challenge to either team after the season opener.

That kinda makes Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. tilt at Esther Shiner Stadium on North York the start of the real season both sides.

“We’ve prepared hard for everybody,” said Weir. “BA played really well the first time, but they tied us. Our guys look at that game as a loss because they know they should have won.

“We’ve assumed we’d be here. We knew early in the season exactly what we had,” said Weir. “Who we would play, we didn’t know.

“We’ll find out now who has improved more since that game. We’re going into a team we feel is every bit as good as us.”

The Warriors will have to contend with the passing game of quarterback DJ Frank, who would seem in the running for league most valuable player along with Warriors’ stud running back Connor Anderson, whose 23 touchdowns far exceed anyone else, and make him a contender to retain the top player crown he won last season as a first-year senior.

“This will be an interesting game,” predicted Cardinals’ head coach Rick Maloney. “I feel if both teams play their best football I think we can come out on top.

“The last time we played them, we threw the ball against them for close to 300 yards. I thought we had a fantastic game against them earlier, but we couldn’t run the ball well.

“No one has beaten Huron Heights in York Region for over the last three years. But we feel we have the team that can beat them.”

 Right move

Critics suggest Jerome Dupont ought not to have accepted the position of head coach with the Gatineau Olympiques of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with a hockey season in progress.

That’s ludicrous, of course.

Dupont, who had interviewed at a handful of Ontario Hockey League centres in the past couple of years since leading the Aurora Tigers to the Royal Bank Cup national championship in 2007, made no secret of his desire to advance his hockey career.

Opportunities such as this do not lend themselves to stalling for the perfect moment. There is no such moment. A fellow whose mandate is to push kids to the next level, as Dupont and the Tigers organization have done so well, has to jump at the opportunity.

It’s what the game is all about.

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