Steve Milton: ‘There’s no greater feeling’ for the Westmount Wildcats as they take city championship for the third year
Talk about a make-good.
Early in the fourth quarter of Wednesday's Hamilton public high school championship and his Westmount Wildcats marching toward a lead they had not had all game, Matt Frketich took a penalty for holding a Sir Allan MacNab Lion.
But on the very next play, Frketich hit the hole like he'd been shot out of a cannon and slashed his way 33 yards for the touchdown that put Westmount up 14-11 on the way to a 25-11 victory over a tough Lions bunch who led 9-0 at half time.
When you get that holding penalty your heart just drops because you know it'll cost your team, so to score that touchdown and lift your teammates back up, was a tremendous boost," said the 16-year-old, Grade 11 student.
It was the third straight city senior title for the Wildcats, after a 30-plus year drought.
They did it with some great defence, and by dominating the second half and by shutting down the strong arm of MacNab quarterback Kiernan Deg who was very effective into a seriously strong, and seriously wet, headwind in the second quarter on a long touchdown march.
I'm proud of our guys," said MacNab head coach Vinny Didiomede. They're a great bunch. We had a good first half ... but that's football. Westmount pushed it down our throat in the second half. Credit to them, they're a very good team and a terrific opponent on the field."
The Lions' defence controlled the Wildcats throughout the opening half and, overall, forced a couple of safety touches, but Westmount took over completely in the final two quarters behind the quick hits of Frketich, who scored a second touchdown to salt things away and the power running of Jalen Collins-Reed, who also had a touchdown. The place-kicking of thunder-footed Cameron Hughes, also played a big role in a game strongly influenced by the fierce, but fairly warm, south wind.
Earlier in the day Ancaster won a thrilling Chayka Bowl 11-8 over Glendale.
To reach Wednesday's final on the windswept plain at Nora Frances Henderson Secondary School, Westmount, which went 4-0 in the regular season, beat Saltfleet 46-0 in the semifinal, while MacNab edged Sir Winston Churchill 33-30. MacNab's only regular season loss was to Westmount.
This was the fifth straight time the championship had been won by one of these two teams. Last year's season was cancelled by the pandemic, but prior to that Westmount won two in a row, over Sir Winston Churchill in 2019 and Westdale in 2018. That came on the heels of back-to-back wins by MacNab: over Saltfleet in the 2016 final and 13-12 over Westmount in 2017.
To have to wait out the year to play and then to come back and win a third straight to continue the legacy of Westmount and the players who went before us and have gone on to do good things, there's no greater feeling," Frketich said.
The crowd was limited to 200 because of strict pandemic controls.
Westmount coach Tom Pain added, Kudos to MacNab. They did a great job. They're a very good team."
Westmount now advances to next Wednesday's SOSSA final at Welland's Notre Dame SS to play the winners of Thursday's Niagara district championship. Next week's winner will represent SOSSA in the OFSAA Bowls Festival. That series, normally featuring nine games in one area, has been altered this year by pandemic concerns to six bowls played in six different regions. Specific matchups and game sites were still being finalized Wednesday afternoon, OFSAA staff liaison Jim Barbeau told The Spectator.
Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com