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Kelly Road drives into playoff spot |
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Written by TED CLARKE
Citizen staff
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Friday, 10 October 2008 |
Clarence Gamache of the Duchess Park Condors, centre, gets pulled down by Mitch Marsolais of the Kelly Road Roadrunners during Friday night’s high school football game at Masich Place Stadium. (Brent Braaten, Photographer)
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Taylor Cherkas packed a full-force wallop with him to the field at Masich Place Stadium that stopped the Duchess Park Condors dead in their tracks. The 16-year-old Kelly Road Roadrunners rookie safety/kicker was hard to ignore driving the steamroller that led to a 10-0 win over the Condors Friday night and moved his team into playoff spot in the Northern High School Football League.
“Ever since I was six I’ve been playing soccer and I just had a change of heart and I wanted to try something new, and I’m loving it,” said Cherkas, a Grade 11 student.
“We worked pretty hard that game. The defence definitely played a lot of that game. The offence did good, but the defence keeps on truckin.”
With the win, the Roadrunners (3-2) leapfrogged the Condors (2-3) to grab sole possession of fourth place in the six-team league. The top four teams make the playoffs, which start in two weeks.
After a scoreless first half, the Condors were driving the field and had the ball at midfield when Mitch Cox intercepted a Tyler Thompson pass and ran it back 20 yards into Condor territory. Kevin Mitchell ran the ball an additional 15 yards and on the next play, Brandon Deschamps cruised in from 26 yards out to score the only points Kelly Road needed. Cherkas added the convert with 7:18 left to play in the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Cherkas turned a reverse into a 10-yard gain and Mitchell took the pitch from Cory Rollings to earn a first down inside the Condors’ 10. Ensuing penalties moved the ball back and the Condors’ defence held, but Cherkas got the call to try a 19-yard field goal attempt and found the target to add to the lead.
Deschamps didn’t have to be reminded what Cherkas meant to his team.
“A lot of high school teams I’ve played on before you can’t kick field goals, so when you get down into the other team’s territory you almost have to go for it on third down,” said Deschamps. “Having Taylor means you can score points on kicks and it kind of opens it up. And he’s got good hands, too.”
Needing to score twice, the Condors were unable to move the ball deep, and Cherkas all but ended the suspense when he picked off another Thompson pass. Key in the victory for Kelly Road was the pass protection given Rollings, with linemen Mitch Marsolais, Steve St. Pierre and Kirby Grewal in the centre of the action. Defensively, Cox, Kolten Ferris and Zac Johnson kept the Condor backfield in check. When they did get free, Cherkas and Chandler Lefleche dished out punishing hits as the deep backs.
Lefleche, who can play just about any position, had the longest run of the day, an 84-yard scamper in the fourth quarter that helped set up the field goal. He also laid out Mathusan Kandasamy with a touchdown-saving sideline tackle on the last play of the first half, after Kelly Road strangely elected to punt rather than try a hail-Mary pass into the end zone.
“Chandler is probably one of those guys who gets missed because, night-in, night-out, he’s so sound you don’t even notice him out there,” said Kelly Road head coach Ryan Bellamy. “He does his job and does it so well.”
The Condors were knocking on the door inside the five-yard line in the first half but Thompson fumbled the ball on a quarterback keeper and Riley Harders was in the right spot to recover after Marsolais kicked the loose ball over to him.
Kandasamy knows his team has to do a better job of containing the run if they hope to make the playoffs. Poor turnouts in practice lately haven’t helped the Condors’ cause.
“They had a lot of good blocking and our D-line wasn’t putting on enough pressure,” said Kandasamy. “We did pretty good in the first half but we weren’t containing them on the outside and letting them run.”
In one other result Friday, the Nechako Valley Vikings of Vanderhoof improved their hold on first place after a 30-2 win over the Correlieu Clan of Quesnel. Mike Cogan and Spence Marks each had a pair of touchdowns.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 10 October 2008 )
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