THUNDER BAY – The St. Ignatius Falcons won six straight junior football titles before being dethroned last fall by the St. Patrick Saints.
They’ll have a chance at a little championship revenge next Saturday.
The Falcons raced out to a 20-0 lead on Friday night at Fort William Stadium and made easy work of the Hammarskjold Vikings in semifinal play, downing their crosstown rivals 41-12 to advance to their eighth straight junior final.
Tyler Robertson led the St. Ignatius offensive attack with a pair of rushing touchdowns – a 31-yard run that opened the scoring for the Falcons in the first quarter, and a 52-yard scamper that capped the contest in the fourth.
Getting back to the championship game was all the Falcons could ask, said Robertson, his team’s only two losses in six regular season games coming at the hands of the defending champion Saints.
“I think it was pretty difficult,” he said of the semifinal win. “Hammarskjold’s defence put up a pretty good fight. Dylan Halls on the other team, he was doing incredible. He was hard to counter, but I think we did good.”
Robertson was glad to see five days of hard practice ahead of the match paying off, both as a team performance and an individual one.
“It felt good. Once again, the offensive line on both of the scores, it was great blocking.”
The veteran Falcon said the team is going to do its best to forget about the two losses to the Saints and focus more on what it’s going to take to make the third time the charm.
It helps they’ll be at full strength, he said.
“We were missing a lot of players at the time. If we get the blocking down and stop Manerplaw Winning and Kiran MacKenzie, I’m sure we can get it,” Robertson said.
Jack Zhang, who set up Robertson’s first touchdown with a long run deep into Hammarskjold territory, before adding to the St. Ignatius attack with a 27-yard touchdown run of his own in the fourth, said the Vikings gave them a battle, agreed with Robertson that having the team at full strength makes them a much better squad than the one that finished the regular season 4-2.
“We were short on a lot of players and just having our original team back helped a lot, I think,” Zhang said.
Zhang’s touchdown came four minutes into the final quarter and ended any hope of a miraculous Vikings comeback, upping the St. Ignatius lead to 34-6.
“It was a sweep on the outside and I just ran as fast as I could,” he said. “It feels really good to try out a new sport and then give your best and have the rewards with it.”
The Falcons defence added another major, Jett Sweitzer pouncing on a loose ball in the Hammarsjkold end zone, their other score coming on a 21-yard pass from quarterback Michael Danchuk to receiver Harrison Tsekouras late in the second quarter.
Lukas Hortis had both Hammarskjold scores, a 33-yard run in the third that made it 20-6, and a short burst to the goal after Dylan Halls kickoff return landed the Vikings on the St. Ignatius eight.
Falcons kicker Rob Hathazi booted a pair of first-half field goals, one from 28 yards, the other from 32, to round out the scoring.
Saturday’s championship will begin at 12 p.m. at Fort William Stadium.
