Roughriders, Steelers and Vikings capture North Shore trophies

BY MICHAEL PIASETZKI

The annual North Shore Football League (NSFL) inter-park championship games unfolded last weekend at a new venue and on a different day.

For the first time, NSFL trophies at the peewee, mosquito and atom levels were handed out on a Sunday instead of the traditional Saturday, and not at Riverdale High School in Pierrefonds as has been the case for so many years, but at Glenn F. McHugh Field in Dollard des Ormeaux.

In the morning peewee game, with a trip to the provincial final on the line, the Alexander Park Roughriders beat the Ile Bizard Vikings 36-14. Running back Shawn Steen led the Roughriders with a pair of touchdowns while Davide Santilli, Patrick Smith and quarterback Tom Quinn added others. The Roughriders led 22-0 after the first quarter and 28-6 at the half.

“I am thrilled for these kids,” said an ecstatic Roughies head coach Steve Mons. “We had 52 plays ready to go on offence, but we only used six. Those six got us 11 straight wins coming into this game, and they got us a trip to the final as well.”

In the midday mosquito game, the old pigskin adage that it’s extremely tough for one team to defeat another three straight times in a season came to fruition as the Westpark Steelers surprised the Sunnybrooke Bears 34-0. The Bears had beaten the Steelers two times during the regular season. Quarterback Justin McInnis ran for two touchdowns and threw one to Kalial Nesfield to lead the Steelers. Nesfield added another touchdown on an interception return while Dustin Singer scored what turned out to be the winning TD in the first quarter.

“We made some adjustments on our defence coming in,” said Steelers head coach James Buteau, whose troops, which now haven’t given up a defensive touchdown for 10 quarters, will meet the Boucherville Grizzlies this Sunday at McHugh Field in a regional semifinal crossover game. “We twitched our offence as well, going to the running game a little more. The kids played hard, and credit them with the win. We. We showed up with 22 players while they had 42. We weren’t intimidated.”

Trailing 8-0 in the second quarter, the Bears lost key running back James Tyrell with a shoulder injury, and never seemed to recover.

“That injury took the sails out of us,” said Bears head coach Pat O’Brien. “Eventually, when we were down by 20 points, we just tried passing, but interceptions or dropped balls hurt us and we broke down.”

Finally, in the atom final, the Ile Bizard Vikings doubled up on the A Ma Baie Falcons 12-6. The Vikings will play the Montreal Archers in a crossover semifinal game this weekend.