Churchill Trojans march 62 yards in final minutes to stun St. Ignatius

The Churchill Trojans don’t know the meaning of down and out.

After allowing Liam Fors to race 80 yards for a score in the final minute of play to give the St. Ignatius Falcons a 24-20 lead in their senior varsity high school football battle, the Trojans could have hung their heads and accepted defeat.

But that’s not the Trojan way.

Matthew Currie set the stage, racing the ensuing kickoff back 43 yards to the Churchill 52. Then quarterback Tallon Morris set to work. One play later, a 58-yard hookup with Nathan Lemieux, the ball was on the St. Ignatius five.

Morris then spotted Scott Lawson for the winning strike, the improbable 27-24 win clinching a playoff spot for a Trojans team that’s now won four straight contests.

“When they scored a touchdown with 50 seconds left, everyone kept their heads high,” said Morris, who powered the Churchill win with four touchdown throws, including a 23-yarder to Lawson that opened the scoring in the first quarter and a pair of scoring tosses to Brennan Tienhaara.

“We just battled back. We have high hearts. Everybody still has hopes that we can do it.”

The final drive was one to remember, Morris added.

“Lemieux really stepped up and really called the play. He was like, ‘I’m going to do this,’” Morris said.

“We had five yards left, we had a play for it and it was a touchdown.”

Clinching the playoff berth was icing on the cake, he added.

“We started 0-2 and everybody counted us out of the playoffs,” Morris said.

“We came back with four straight wins. Even they didn’t see it coming.”

Churchill coach Mike Doromko said it’s just the kind of roll he wants to see his squad on, with playoffs only three weeks away.
He said he wasn’t worried after Fors scored the go-ahead touchdown.

“The coaching staff, we knew we were getting the ball back with 51 seconds left. We scored a lot quicker than we actually thought we would,” Doromko said. “We had three scripted plays from that position and the kids knew exactly what they were doing.”

The two teams played a tight football game the entire way, neither side taking more than a 10-point lead.

The first-place Falcons cut into the Trojans 7-0 lead late in the first when Ryan Grandell nailed a short field goal to make it 7-3. Jake Puskas gave St. Ignatius its first lead early in the second, bursting over the goal line from four yards out. But Morris hit Tienhaara, who went 24 yards untouched up the middle and the Trojans retook the lead, which they’d hold until the final minute of play.

Fors appeared to have scored an 82-yard rushing major late in the first half, but the play was called back because of an unnecessary roughness penalty.

After Morris connected once again with Tienhaara early in the third, St. Ignatius’s Landon Krebs barreled through a hole from 10 yards out to pull the Falcons once again within three point.

The Fort William Stadium loss drops the Falcons to 5-2, with one game left on their schedule. The win improves Churchill to 4-2.