JV Sabercats season ends at home

It was a tough way for the Sault Sabercats junior varsity team to finish off the season.

Despite taking a 28-7 lead into the half and leading 34-14 in the third quarter, the Sabercats dropped a 41-34 decision to the Huronia Stallions Saturday night in Ontario Football Conference playoff action, bringing an end to the Sabercats first season in the league.

“We just lost momentum,” said Sabercats Coach Steve Nott. “For kids this age, momentum is the biggest thing and changing it is hard. Once you lose it, it’s hard to get it back.”

Nott would also credit Huronia’s ability to make a play when needed.

“They made some big plays and we made some errors,” Nott said. “We couldn’t get momentum back.”

As the Sabercats jumped out to the lead in the opening half, the teams would trade touchdowns in the opening quarter.

Sabercats quarterback Jordan Robinson-Wright ran the ball in from 11 yards out with just under four minutes to go in the quarter before Mark Arrizza got Huronia on the board on a touchdown pass from quarterback Daniel Hawthorne with 1:42 to go in the opening quarter.

The Sabercats would take the lead thanks to three second-quarter touchdowns, including a pair of touchdown runs by Robinson-Wright and a catch by Matthew Jackson for a major late in the quarter,

Huronia would cut into the lead with an early touchdown run by Michael Casano only to see the Sabercats extend the lead on a touchdown by Mitchell DellaVedova to make the score 34-14 going into the fourth quarter.

The Stallions would proceed to score three touchdowns in the final quarter, including a pair of Liam Harrison on passes from Hawthorne. Casano had the other Huronia touchdown in the quarter while William McCulloch kicked a field goal early in the quarter.

“When you get up that much, you coast a little bit,” Nott said of the big lead. “It’s just that sometimes you have the fight inside you but you look up at the scoreboard and you’re up by 21 or 24 points.”

Robinson-Wright finished the day with 72 yards rushing on 16 carries while passing for 187 yards on 12 completions. Della Vedova had 79 yards on 15 carries. Defensively for the Sabercats, Jacob Jurich had 6 solo tackles and seven assisted tackles. Evan Sicoli also had six solo tackles.