Steelers complete regular season

Because of the result, Saturday’s regular season finale between the Sault Steelers and GTA All Stars wound up setting up the first round of the Northern Football Conference playoffs.

The All Stars beat the Steelers 49-20 at Rocky DiPietro Field Saturday night to seal top spot in the NFC’s East Division. The result also sets up a playoff meeting next week in Toronto between the two clubs.

The game was tight in the opening half with the All Stars holding a slim 20-14 lead in the second quarter but some miscommunication on special teams led to an All Stars touchdown and two-point convert to take a lead that would continue to grow in the second half.

Alonzo Clarke had the lone touchdown catch for the Steelers on an eight-yard pass. It was one of four passes he caught for 74 yards to lead all Steelers receivers.

The touchdown catch cut the GTA lead to 20-14 at the time but Michael Livingstone would take a lateral on the ensuing kickoff, which was a short kick, and run the ball into the Steelers endzone to further increase the All Stars lead.

Reid would say the short kick was a simple miscommunication.

“We had actually called something different,” Steelers Coach Frank Reid said. “The ball was supposed to go to the left and it went short right when it was supposed to go long left.”

Reid would say that the Steelers excitement level at the half was still high.

“At half time, I’ve never seen the team so excited,” he said. “We had glimpses of what we can do.”

Steelers Quarterback Ron Kelly finished the day with nine completions on 21 attempts for 121 yards and a touchdown.

Stevan Hiiemaa had 39 yards rushing on seven rushes. Nate Edwards ran for a pair of touchdowns and had nine carries for 27 yards.

Defensively for the Steelers, Ben Muncaster had 10 tackles. Justin Dubreuil had six while Jason Gregg had five.

Isaiah Wiltshire had three touchdown catches for GTA. He caught passes of three, 13 and 15 yards for majors and had 81 yards receiving on 10 catches. Amitaj Gill had 98 yards receiving on 11 catches which included a touchdown catch of eight yards and a two-point convert.

GTA quarterback Tom Denison completed 27 of 31 passes for 293 yards and five touchdowns. Marcus Wisdom took a pair of snaps at quarterback, completing a pair of passes for 22 yards and a touchdown.

Loxley Prince caught Wisdom’s touchdown pass.

George Baiden ran the ball 15 times for 104 yards for the All Stars while also completing a pass.

Wisdom had 5.5 tackles for the All Stars defensively.

The Steelers played the game with limited numbers due to injuries and players missing the game due to personal commitments which led to players like Brandon Lewis forced to play on both sides of the ball in the game.

“It made it really tough,” Reid said. “We were playing too many people both ways and we didn’t put the pressure we would have like to on (Denison).”

Kickoff for the game was delayed nearly an hour after the All Stars bus was stuck on the highway en route to Sault Ste. Marie due to the accident on Highway 17 in Spanish.

The other NFC game on Saturday saw the Sarnia Imperials beat the Sudbury Spartans 49-10 in Sudbury as the regular season wrapped up.

The NFC playoff matchups are now set as Saturday’s games were the final two on the NFC schedule.

The other playoff matchups include Oakville at Sarnia, Sudbury at Ottawa and Hamilton at Tri-City.

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FINAL STANDINGS

West Division

1. Sarnia Imperials: 7-1 (14 points)
2. Tri-City Outlaws: 4-4 (9 points)
3. Sudbury Spartans: 3-5 (6 points)
4. Sault Steelers: 1-7 (3 points)

East Division

1. GTA All Stars: 6-2 (13 points)
2. Ottawa Invaders: 6-2 (12 points)
3. Steel City Patriots: 4-4 (8 points)
4. Oakville Longhorns: 1-7 (2 points)

Note: Teams receive two points for a win and one point for an overtime loss