A record-setting season for the Sault Sabercats varsity team will have at least one more game, and it’s the biggest in the history of the organization.
The team ran its winning streak this season to eight games on Saturday night thanks to a 23-7 victory over the Waterloo Warriors in Ontario Summer Football League playoff action at Superior Heights.
After going unbeaten in regular season play, a first for a Sabercats team, the locals are now heading to the OSFL AA final next weekend after a pair of playoff wins.
“A couple of turnovers put them in some tight spots, but they responded,” said Sabercats coach Matt Premo. “They picked up the offence when they needed it. They played a hell of a game. (Giving up) seven points to a great team like (Waterloo) is awesome. They played solid the entire game.”
“They competed right until the end,” Premo also said. “That’s one of the first games we’ve had where it was a tight game for 48 minutes and they stayed locked in.”
Offensively for the Sabercats, coming off a 53-point performance one week earlier in their playoff opener against the Chatham-Kent Cougars, Premo said the offence at times didn’t click as well as last week, but got the job done when they were needed the most.
“We missed a couple of guys where we had some open guys and just missed them whereas against Chatham (last week), we hit those,” Premo said. “We were just off a bit, but in the second half, when we needed to score and get the ball down the field, we did. We needed to run the clock out near the end, and we were able to run it out and score to put the game away. They responded in the second half.”
The Sabercats opened the scoring in the first quarter thanks to a 17-yard field goal from Ty Koski with five minutes to go.
The Sabercats took a 5-0 lead in the opening minute of the second quarter when Waterloo conceded a safety 22 seconds in.
With 3:44 to go in the half, after Nick Carter blocked a field goal attempt by Waterloo only to see the Warriors get the ball back on the second play from scrimmage when Owen Van Veen picked off a pass by Sabercats quarterback Matti Tucker.
Waterloo proceeded to get the ball deep in Sabercats territory and, after being turned aside on back-to-back play, quarterback Grayson Weber hit Malakhai Pryce from two yards out for a touchdown. Roman Marinelli hit the convert to make it 7-5 Waterloo.
With the ball late, Tucker hit Daniel Bumbaco on a deep pass to bring the ball to the Waterloo 5-yard line. On the following play, Ronan Provenzano punched the ball in to give the Sabercats the lead. The convert by Koski made it 12-7 Sabercats heading into the half.
With just over five minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the Sabercats took an eight-point lead when Koski hit an 18-yard field goal for the locals to make it 15-7.
With 2:11 to go, Bumbaco missed a 32-yard field goal and proceeded to tackle the Waterloo returner in the end zone to give the Sabercats a rouge and a 16-7 lead.
In the final minute of play, the Sabercats sealed the win on a seven-yard touchdown run by Bumbaco, which came shortly after a 24-yard run by Provenzano put the Sabercats deep in Waterloo territory. Koski hit the extra point to cap off the scoring.
Provenzano finished the day with 137 yards rushing on 15 carries while Carter caught three passes from Tucker for 50 yards offensively.
Defensively for the Sabercats, Ethan Carchidi had 6.5 tackles and a fumble recovery while Cater added 2.5 tackles in addition to his blocked field goal. Brandon Vecchio chipped in with 4.5 tackles.
The Sabercats opponent in next weekend’s OSFL final in Windsor will be determined on Sunday when Sarnia faces Huronia.