By Dan Plouffe
Two days after the Grey Cup, the St. Joseph Jaguars and the St. Matthew Tigers served up an even more exciting finish to the national capital high school football championship game at Carleton University, with third-and-goal from the one-yard line deciding it all on the final play.
“Before the play, the defence, when we were talking in the end zone, we were just like, ‘This is the game. They score, we lose. They don’t, we win,’” recalled 6’ 5″, 300-lb. Jaguars lineman Jett Hudson, who met Tigers quarterback Jackson Plante at the line of scrimmage before a mass of bodies toppled on top of one another.
Knowing full well the importance of the call, the officials huddled up after the play and left the whole stadium waiting on pins and needles for the final decision for roughly 15 seconds.
“That was so scary,” recounted Hudson. “I knew (Plante) was short, but you know, it’s about where he puts the football at the end.
“Your heart just stops, right? I’m just sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting for the call and they finally say he’s short and now I’m celebrating with my team.
“We’re the champions. It’s an amazing feeling. I’ve been on this team for three years, been in the final three times in a row, and we finally won one.”
The Jaguars were the definite underdogs headed into the city championship game. They’d never before won a Tier 1 city title and they’d lost their last two meetings with 2022 OFSAA Bowl-champion St. Matthew – last year’s city final and a 46-14 defeat earlier this season. St. Joseph also lost the 2021 national capital final to St. Mark, but they wouldn’t be denied on their third time, despite a 20-7 halftime deficit.
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“We’ve got a real veteran group,” highlighted Jaguars coach Blaine Scatcherd. “Yesterday at practice, I said, ‘You know what’s different about our group?’ and I had all our 30 Grade 12s stand up. I said, ‘Our leadership is so strong, and they’re gonna drag us to victory.’ And they did.
“We’ve got some really good kids who’ve been in this program for a long time and I’m so happy for them that they can finish like this.”
St. Matthew strikes furiously in 1st quarter
The early script in the championship game was not trending towards a Hollywood finish in St. Joseph’s favour.
Three-and-a-half minutes in, Tigers receiver Pantelis Livadiotakis-Fraser covered half the field on a catch from Plante for the opening touchdown.
A Xavier Dubuc interception helped St. Matthew gain good field position, then a possession later, Nathaniel Assivero ran for a 31-yard touchdown on the first play of the drive. Nick Kosavic’s booted his second convert for a 14-0 Tigers lead.
“We scored early, on the third (offensive) play, and I thought that, you know, that was kind of going to be us for the rest of the game,” reflected St. Matthew coach Geoffrey Coventry. “But they never went away.”
St. Joseph built a bit of momentum before the end of the first quarter with consecutive first downs, and Felix Pelletier finished the drive with an 11-yard touchdown catch from Ashton St. Germain early in the second quarter. The Liana Langiano extra point made it 14-7.
The Tigers’ passing game came up with key catch after key catch on their next scoring drive. Livadiotakis-Fraser got his second touchdown grab as Plante got his throw off a split second before the defensive pressure arrived. St. Matthew went for a two-point convert after one of many St. Joseph offside penalties, but missed, and went into halftime up 20-7.
Jaguars jolt to life in 3rd with rookie runningback
The “tale of two halves” – as Coventry called it – began with the Tigers conceding a safety and the St. Joseph running game gaining traction. The Jaguars’ offensive line created space and rookie Josh Dada got to play an unlikely prominent role at runningback.
“I never touched a football pad until this year,” noted the Grade 12 student who’d only played soccer and basketball before. “My friends were playing football the last two or three years and they said, ‘It’s your last year, you may as well try football,’ and I said, ‘OK’.
“I listened to my coaches, listened to my players and they all showed me love. I did my thing, practiced every day and came out here to help the team as much as I could. We all did it together.”
Dada pushed the Jaguars down field in a third-quarter drive, but St. Matthew lineman Michael Ejike met him on third-and-goal to deny a score. The St. Joseph defence did add two more points on another conceded safety to make it 20-11, and it stalled the Tiger offence for the whole third quarter.
After a close call on a double forward pass wiped out a Jaguars touchdown in the fourth quarter, St. Germain wound up plunging in to finish the drive nonetheless. That brought St. Joseph within two at 20-18 after the Langiano convert.
The Tigers then fumbled to turn it over on their own 27-yard line. Dada ran for 19, then St. Germain pitched a pass to a wide open David Auger for the touchdown and suddenly it was all Jaguars. The two-point convert attempt failed and it was 24-20 St. Joe’s.
Tigers roar back late in 4th
Now trailing for the first time, the Tigers found some life with a deep catch by Livadiotakis-Fraser to finally bring the ball back onto the St. Joseph side of the field. Assivero and Colin Laplante ran for back-to-back big gains and Plante plunged forward twice to get down to the one-yard line. But the Tigers then took an illegal procedure penalty and the Jaguars’ Ethen Hopkins broke up the third-down pass attempt to keep St. Joseph up by four with four minutes to play.
St. Matthew’s defence got the stop on the next possession and earned a safety to make the score 24-22 with 2:02 left.
The Tigers quickly advanced the ball with time ticking down on catches by Christos Zigoumis and Laplante. St. Joseph then took an interference penalty on Livadiotakis-Fraser to give St. Matthew first-and-goal from the seven with 37 seconds left.
From there, the Tigers called on the player who led them to city and provincial titles last season. Plante ran for five yards on his first carry and approached the goal line on his second try to set up the dramatic final plunge attempt for all the marbles, which came up short.
“What a finish – I don’t know what else you can say,” Scatcherd smiled through chattering teeth after receiving the coach’s customary victory bath in sub-zero weather. “When we win like that, I’ll take the Gatorade shower any time, any place.”
The Jaguars will now head all the way to Windsor for the OFSAA Bowl Series, where they’ll face the Eastern Ontario champion in the National Capital Bowl on Nov. 29 at 10 a.m.
“Credit to coach Scatch,” Coventry states. “We’ve been battling it out for the better part of two years now and I really have a lot of respect for what they do over there and I really hope that they do well at OFSAA and represent Ottawa very well. I know they’ve got a great team.”
Through the sting of defeat, Coventry appreciated being part of a highly memorable championship game and a great showcase for the sport.
“This just goes to show that Ottawa high school football is very strong right now,” he underlines. “I would encourage all the kids in the city to play for their high schools, because you can see it just means a lot to everyone.”
Female foot makes the difference
Down two points with the ball on the one-yard line, a successful field goal attempt would have won the game for St. Matt’s, but the Tigers preferred to try to run it in.
“I’m gonna live and die by that one. That’s on me,” signals Coventry. “We’re on the one-yard line, we should score. Jackson wanted it as well and I trust Jackson to get in there.”
In his view from the sidelines, Coventry believed Plante did make it to the end zone.
“I’m going to be honest, I thought we scored twice. The first time, it was a little iffy, but I’m going to tell you, the second time, I thought we scored for sure,” he says. “However, we did go away for a few quarters and St. Joe’s did not.”
In the end, a pair of extra-point conversions stood as the deciding margin of victory for St. Joseph. Booting those through was placekicker Liana Langiano, one of two female Jaguars players alongside backup quarterback Maia Peters.
“They have both been exceptional,” indicates Scatcherd, whose school is home to a girls’ tackle football team in the springtime. “They didn’t make this team because they were girls. They made this team because they deserved it.”
Had the situation been reversed with the Jaguars trailing at the end, Scatcherd would have called on Langiano with the game on the line.
“We would have kicked the field goal,” he says. “I’m glad they didn’t.”