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On the eve of the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) Northern Bowl, the leadership of the Korah Colts senior football team stands to be a potential factor.
Prior to COVID-19 forcing the cancellation of the 2020 football season, the Colts won a Northern Bowl title in 2019 and a National Capital Bowl title in 2018.
The junior program, which has graduated players to this year’s senior team as well, enjoyed some success prior to the COVID-lost season as well.
“I certainly rest easier knowing that we have athletes that have tremendous experience in championship games,” Colts head coach Tom Annett said. “We were just talking with our guys about that (Friday). We’re going to lean on them for their experience. T tends to be when you play in championship games, your emotions are exaggerated. When something good happens, people get too excited. When something bad happens, people get down too much.”
“We’re expecting our leadership to keep it even keep throughout the game and focus on their assignment,” Annett added.
The Colts are set to face Thunder Bay’s St. Ignatius Falcons on Saturday afternoon in a 1 p.m. kickoff at Superior Heights.
While St. Ignatius is coming off a two-week break between games while the Colts won the Northern Ontario Secondary School Athletics (NOSSA) title last weekend locally, Annett said there are advantages for both teams in the time off between games.
“It goes both ways,” Annett said. “We went into the city final off a bye week and into the NOSSA final with a bye week and it helped us in the NOSSA game because we had some injuries that guys needed to recover from. But there are some advantages to not being off so long and having a high level of competition.”
St. Ignatius advanced to OFSAA thanks to a 10-7 win over Hammarskjold in the Thunder Bay city final two weeks ago.
Running back Tyler Robertson ran for 144 yards and a touchdown in the win.
“They use one tight end and two tight end sets from what we know and a lot of two backs in the backfield,” Annett said of St. Ignatius. “It’s a downhill run game mixed in with some misdirection. They have an excellent receiver too that if you try to cheat too many guys in the box, they’ll try to throw to them.”
St. Ignatius had dropped two earlier matchups with Hammarskjold before beating the Vikings for the city title. The two losses were the lone losses this season for St. Ignatius.
Korah earned its OFSAA spot thanks to a 36-0 win over North Bay’s Algonquin Barons last Saturday at Superior Heights, running their overall record this season to 6-0.
-with files from TBNewsWatch