The Sault Sabercats junior varsity team remains unbeaten in Ontario Summer Football League play, but the team is looking to continue to make some adjustments in hopes of becoming an elite team.
A pair of late touchdowns lifted the Sabercats to a 34-28 win on Saturday afternoon against the Sudbury Spartans at Superior Heights.
It was a win that saw the team erase a 21-12 halftime deficit en route to the win.
“We showed a little bit of character,” said JV Sabercats co-coach Jim Monico. “We called them out in the first half. I wasn’t very happy in the first half. We made a lot of mistakes. I didn’t think we were where we needed to be intensity-wise. In the second half, we showed up. We answered the call and did what we had to do.”
In their regular season opener last week, a 36-12 win over the North Bay Bulldogs, Monico talked about mistakes being a factor early in the win and said they remain a concern.
“Mistakes are what keeps us from being a really good team right now and having to fight back to win games like this,” Monico said. “When we start limiting our mistakes, we’ll be a really good team.”
Defensively, the Sabercats made some adjustments throughout the course of the game and those small adjustments proved crucial in clamping down.
“We just told them to relax. We do have a lot of young kids on the team, but, thankfully, the coaching staff is so high quality that we don’t panic,” Sabercats co-coach Will Basawa said of the halftime adjustments defensively. “We told them that we were making our own mistakes and that Sudbury isn’t any better than us at the time. Just playing fundamentals, calming down, and staying composed is a big thing for some of these young men.”
The Sabercats opened the scoring midway through the opening quarter as Nathan Guizzetti took a handoff and ran the ball in from 67 yards out for a touchdown to give the locals a 6-0 lead after a missed two-point convert attempt.
Sudbury got on the board as time expired in the opening quarter when Dylan Nelson caught a 19-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Ian MacDonald. A convert by Paolo Grossi made it a 7-6 game.
Sudbury extended the lead midway through the second quarter as Quin Mazzuchin caught a 63-yard touchdown pass from MacDonald. With the convert by Grossi, Sudbury made it a 14-6 game.
With just over three minutes to go in the second quarter, the Sabercats cut into the Spartans lead thanks to another touchdown run from Guizzetti. On the first play from scrimmage after an interception by Tanner Dickinson, Guizzetti scored on a 27-yard run to make it a 14-12 score.
The Spartans took a 21-12 lead into the half as Mazzuchin caught another touchdown pass as MacDonald hit him with a 60-yard pass for the major. Grossi capped it off with the extra point on the play.
Guizzetti made it a one-score game on the opening play of the fourth quarter when he broke loose for a 20-yard touchdown run and proceeded to score on the two-point convert to make it a 21-20 game.
Guizetti proceeded to give the Sabercats the lead on the next possession for the locals, scoring on a 56-yard touchdown run. Guizzetti then scored on a two-point convert to give the Sabercats a 28-21 lead just under two minutes into the fourth quarter.
Sudbury tied the game at 28 on a 61-yard catch and run by Jonah Gibson and convert by Grossi with just over three minutes to go.
With just under 90 seconds to go, Dickinson picked off a pass to give the Sabercats the ball with 84 seconds to go.
After a penalty set the Sabercats back 15 yards, Guizetti got the Sabercats back into Sudbury territory with a 24-yard run on the Sault’s next play from scrimmage. Guizzetti proceeded to put the Sabercats on the Sudbury three-yard line after a 39-yard run.
On the next play, Payton Melchiore punched the ball in with 51 seconds to go as the Sabercats retook the lead. A missed two-point convert made it a 34-28 game.
Guizzetti finished the day with 329 yards rushing on 33 carries for the Sabercats.
Defensively for the locals, Dickinson had three interceptions while Steven Day-Nolan had 4.5 tackles.
Grossi had 11.5 tackles for the Spartans in the loss.
The Sabercats return to action next weekend on the road as the team faces the Clarington Knights in a 3:30 p.m. kickoff on Saturday.