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For the first time since the summer of 2019, opening day has arrived for the Sault Sabercats program.
Competing in the Ontario Summer Football League, the Sabercats varsity and junior varsity clubs open regular season action this afternoon on the road in Brantford.
The JV team is coming off a pair of exhibition wins over the North Bay Bulldogs, which included a 48-0 victory last weekend at home.
With a pair of lopsided wins over the Bulldogs, the JV team fully expects the level of competition to go up.
“The competition level is going to step up, so we’re not going to be able to get away with not being intense, not being ready, and making mistakes,” JV Sabercats coach Jim Monico said following an exhibition win over North Bay last weekend. “We really have to bear down in that regard.”
The intensity level was a concern in the second game against the Bulldogs after a 57-0 win in North Bay to open up exhibition play.
Looking to maintain their intensity level, Monico said the young JV roster is shaping up for the new season.
“I was really happy with our linebacker play,” Monico said of the second exhibition game as well. “We have good players in those spots.”
“We have a lot of good players in skill spots,” Monico added of the JV roster. “Our skill positions are really strong, and our secondary is really strong as well. Our group ahs to work on our interior play, the O-line and D-line stuff.”
With COVID-19 meaning no Sault Minor Football seasons the past two summers, the new season is a learning curve for the JV players.
“The general nuances of the game, some stuff we take for granted, isn’t always there,” Monico said. “A lot of these guys would have come up playing Sault Minor Football, the previous two years, but all they had was one junior football season (in high school). The junior football season, sometimes you just go and the season is over. They play their four games, they play their playoff games and boom, the season is done.”
“The general game we had to coach up a little bit more than we normally would, but it’s been a good process,” Monico added.
Brantford’s JV team has also played a pair of games heading into Saturday, beating the Oakville Titans at home last Saturday by a 12-6 margin after a 29-22 win over the Guelph Junior Gryphons one week earlier in Guelph.
The Sabercats varsity team saw action in one exhibition game ahead of their opener today, beating North Bay 49-0 in North Bay on May 21.
The two clubs were slated to meet last weekend locally, but the North Bat varsity team elected not to make the trip.
Brantford enters Saturday’s varsity game on the heels of a 17-16 win last weekend over Oakville at home.
A week earlier, the Bisons dropped a 22-16 decision to Guelph on the road.
Following Saturday’s games against the Bisons, both Sabercats teams are slated to play their first home games on June 11 against the Myers Riders.
The JV team kicks off at 1 p.m. with the varsity game following at 4 p.m.