They don’t make them much closer than that.
The clock ran dry late in the second half, and a Jaguar possession was cut short as a result, giving the RCI Raiders the margin they needed to post a thrilling 32-31 semi-final win over St. Joe’s in Horton Cup play Thursday in Renfrew.
For Big Blue, it was just as well that time ran out, for the Jaguar offense had already rang up five majors in the contest, answering the Raiders touchdown for touchdown through both halfs of play, and leaving the impression that if this game had gone 40 seconds more, there might well have been a different result.
Jaguar quarterback Joe Hanniman called a near-flawless offensive game, distributing the ball effectively to his backs Nyck Paquette, Mackenzie Curry, and Kim Carter. Paquette, in particular, was able to ramble for serious yardage all afternoon, giving the Raiders fits in an effort to contain him. As well, receiver Skylar Eady repeatedly hauled down big passes for key gains.
The Raiders, tournament favourites, earned a ticket to the tournament final as a result of the win, where they were to face St. Joseph’s Arnprior for the Horton Cup.
“No doubt, that’s a really good football team over there,” said SJCHS football coach Steve Jones. “But we just hammered 30 points past them, and honestly, we were right there.”
Jones has faced this team before in big games, and knows the amount of respect that must be given to an opponent that is the perennial favourite to win the Horton Cup, year after year, and has done exactly that.
“They’re very well-coached, they execute flawlessly, and they’re relentless,” said the Jaguar coach. “They took their team to the national championship a couple of years back, and with the Central and Queen Elizabeth programs coming together at RCI, we knew they weren’t going to be getting any weaker.”
That said, Jones points to two key moments in the game where things get different in a hurry if they had gone the other way. “On their second-last possession, they were third-down and absolutely needed to score. They completed a short pass out of their backfield, and bam, we were on the guy, it was like we had thirty sets of hands all over the guy, but we couldn’t pull that flag out.” Jones claims that a Jaguar stuff of the Raider offense on that series is a game-breaker. “We stop them there, we get the ball, and the clock runs out on them.”
Jones also points to a two-point Jaguar conversion attempt where two St. Joe’s receivers were wide-open in the end zone. “Both of them, right there, and Joey gets them the ball, and they both reach out, and …well, stuff happens.”
The result brings to an end the Jaguar football season, one that was enjoyable from beginning to end, something made possible by the people who were participating in it. And although coming out on the short end of a razor-thin loss, the players took the result in good stride, knowing that they had come very close to doing something nobody was expecting.
“Loss is not the right word for what happened here.” said the Jaguar coach. “Everybody won in this game. It’s just those guys over there won a little bit more.”
Special thanks to members of the St. Joseph’s Catholic High School Flag Football Team:
Joe Hanniman, Mackenzie Curry, Kim Carter, Nych Paquette, Kayla Hintz, Jocelyn Virgin, Skylar Eady, Adam Wright, Danielle Labelle, Athena Mitchell, Brandon Mosseau, Emma Crozier, Kailyn Friske, and Ella Guckes.
