The North Shore Bantam AAA Lions narrowly defeated the Sun Youth Hornets Saturday afternoon at Riverdale High School in the Quebec Bantam Football League’s quarterfinals. In the end, the game came down to one play. If it wouldn’t have been for Sun Youth’s decision to go for a two-point convert with a score of 28-27 in the final minute of the game, the contest might very well have went into overtime.
North Shore took a commanding lead in the first half of the game with touchdowns from Raoul Baroudi, Fransisco Galiana-Audet, James Tyrrell, Nygel Henry and one by Tabari Yearwood in the third quarter. Sun Youth only started retaliating at the end of the second quarter. With two touchdowns, a two-point convert and a single, they narrowed the score to 28-15 by the end of the third quarter. Nonetheless, with one quarter to go and a 13-point lead, North Shore seemed well on its way to victory.
But the Hornets held on with the energy of despair and came back from behind with two touchdowns. The first one came after a two-yard run by Kevin LaGuerre with 6:06 to go in the game. That put the score at 28-21 but the place kicker missed the convert.
On the Lions’ next possession, the Hornets’ Pearce Dumay intercepted the ball at the Lions’ 40-yard line. This lead to Marcus Mitchell’s touchdown with 43 seconds left to go in regulation after he caught a 27-yard pass. The Hornets were then faced with a crucial dilemma: either go for the one-point convert and force an overtime period or going for the win with the two-point conversion. They went for the latter and failed. The game ended with a score of 28-27 for the Lions.
Hornets’ head coach Zack Da Costa commented on the controversial game-clinching decision after the game.
“They had a lot more men than we did. My guys were tired. We played two-ways a lot so we had to end it there. If we went into overtime, I don’t think we would have been able to last out with them. We took the chance and it didn’t work out. I have no regrets. I’m very proud of my players. The last game we played North Shore they beat us by over 50 points,” he said.
As for Lions’ head coach Jean-Marc Michel, he told The Chronicle his team played well only for three and a half quarters and that he thought this wasn’t enough.
“In football, you have to play four quarters. We got lucky this time. If we want to win the next games, we have to play four quarters of football. We could have executed better but we still played a big game today,” he said.
