Colts run to city title

They hadn’t played in 21 days and their last outing was a loss to the team they were facing for a city championship.

With their run game grounded at times in their previous meeting, the Korah Colts ran the ball for 450 yards en route to a 37-15 win over the St. Mary’s Knights Friday night at Superior Heights to capture the senior high school football city title.

The previous meeting was a 15-14 loss to the Knights on Oct.7.

“We had a hard time running the ball against them the last time we played them,” Colts coach Tom Annett said. “They did some different things against us, but if you give our staff some time to work on that and our players to rep it, we were fortunate to have the double bye. We found a few ways to take advantage of what they were doing. We ran the ball very hard.”

Annett called the extra time off between games “weird.”

“Our staff did a really good job of managing it,” Annett added. “We amped up week one, then backed off week two and then amped up.”

Annett added that much of their preparation was anticipating St. Mary’s beating Superior Heights in last week’s semifinal game.

“We defended their pass game well,” Annett said. “They’ve got so many athletes and they throw so much, they’re going to get completions, but overall, we did a good job of bending a little but not breaking.”

Annett also said that the loss to St. Mary’s “kind of ate at our fifth-year players.”

For the Knights, coach Jim Monico said he felt the Colts were the better team in the game.

“I said coming in, whoever played better was going to win and tonight they were the better team,” Monico said. “We just couldn’t get off the field on defence and when we were on offence, we executed in spots, but just not consistently.”

After falling behind in the opening quarter, the Knights got on the board midway through the second quarter, but a flurry of offence by the Colts after the Knights took the lead was crucial.

“We go up 7-6 and then they score again and we’re thinking ‘Ok, 13-7 at halftime is not bad,’ and then they got another one and end up getting a bad punt and they come back and get a field goal and then it’s 23-7 at half,” Monico said. “We moved the ball a little bit to begin the second half, but just couldn’t punch it inThe defence couldn’t get off the field and we couldn’t stay on the field consistently, that’s what it boils down to,” Monico added.

Korah opened the scoring as Jesse Burella ran the ball in from 33 yards out to make it 6-0 Colts midway through the opening quarter.

Jaiden Trudeau caught a 16-yard touchdown pass from Matti Tucker to get St. Mary’s on the board midway through the second quarter. With the convert from Daniel Bumbaco, the Knights took a 7-6 lead.

With just over three minutes to go in the second quarter, Korah drove to the St. Mary’s 2-yard line after a 51-yard yard pass from Ronan Provenzano to Gabe Byron.

On the next play, Burella ran the ball in for the touchdown. With the convert by Koski, the Colts retook the lead by a 13-7 margin.

In the final minute of the half, Provenzano ran the ball in from 15 yards out. The convert by Koski made it 20-7 Korah.

Koski hit 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 ran the ball in from 13 yards out. With the convert by Koski, Korah pulled ahead by a 30-7 margin.

Thibodeau picked up his second major of the night on a four-yard run with 2:17 to go. The convert by Koski made it 37-7.

A 62-yard passing play by Tucker to Bumbaco brought the ball to the Korah 5-yard line.

Bumbaco proceeded to run the ball in for a touchdown on the next play. The two-point convert run by Tucker made it 37-15.

Burella finished the day with 158 yards rushing 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 thew for 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 move on to play a Northern Ontario Secondary School Athletics (NOSSA) semi-final on the road against the Sudbury city champion on Nov. 5. The winner of that game will then host the North Bay champ the following week for the NOSSA title.