By Jon Willemsen
It was a cold afternoon, but Minto Field was fired up on Nov. 2 for the hottest rivalry in local youth football as the Bell Warriors and Cumberland Panthers clashed in back-to-back ‘A’ Cup division finals at the National Capital Amateur Football Association championships.
All four Cumberland and Bell teams entered the Mosquito and Peewee finals with perfect 10-0 records, but only the Panthers held onto zeroes both in the loss column and their opponents’ score with 62-0 and 24-0 shutout victories.
“For the last four or five years that I’ve been coaching, it always seems to be us and Bell – we come out of the east and they keep coming out of the west,” highlights Cumberland Mosquito coach Jeff Koradi. “It’s great to have this success because it means all the hard we put in as a program is worth it.”
Remarkably, this was the second consecutive year that Bell and Cumberland produced undefeated regular seasons in both the under-13 and U-15 levels.
“There’s absolutely mutual respect between us,” underlines Warriors Peewee coach Mike Polito. “Cumberland are always well-coached, and they deserve tons of credit. (…) If we’re going to win an ‘A’ Cup at Peewee – which we never have – I honestly believe that we have to match, and beat, our friends from the east.”
While neither club tastes defeat very often, Cumberland Mosquito quarterback Christian Veilleux says a rare loss in last season’s playoffs made this year’s triumph that much more special.
“It was really fun and exciting to win because last year we lost in the semifinals and it was pretty disappointing,” indicates Veilleux, who threw four touchdown passes in the championship game and wore a smile ear-to-ear after earning redemption. “The fact that we get to win this year is pretty awesome.”
Cumberland was the only club to win two ‘A’ Cup championships this season. The Nepean Eagles and Orleans Bengals each played in two ‘A’ Cup finals. The Eagles won their head-to-head matchup 35-28 for the Midget title, while the Tyke Bengals downed the North Gloucester Giants 59-48 and the Bantam Eagles fell to the Bel-Air Lions 16-8.
Winning ‘B’ Cup crowns were Cumberland (Tyke), Cornwall (Mosquito), Gloucester South (Peewee) and Bell (Bantam), while Bell (Tyke), Bel-Air (Mosquito), South Ottawa (Peewee) and Orleans (Bantam) were ‘C’ Cup champs.