At the urging of his high school buddies in Quesnel, Levi Robertson decided last May he'd start playing football.
Already well-tuned physically with a sharp athletic mind as a lacrosse player, Friday night at Masich Place Stadium Robertson showed why his friends on the Correlieu Clan wanted him by their side.
The 17-year-old tailback wreaked havoc on the College Heights Cougars, scoring five rushing touchdowns in a 54-7 stomping to give the Clan its second win in three B.C. High School Northern League games.
"I had a bunch guys at school bugging me to play because I'm a fast runner so I decided to give it a try and I'm glad I did," said Robertson. "It was a good game, they played tough defence on the other end and we did good on offence.
"It's a good feeling knowing I can run past everyone and put some points on the board. It's a lot of hitting and more harder hits in football [than lacrosse] but you get a good workout from both sports."
Robertson opened the scoring on the first play of the game on a 55-yard sweep. As good as he was carrying the ball, Robertson was equally devastating to the Cougars on defence while playing outside linebacker. He finished one play in the third quarter letting out a big growl as he closed in on Cougars wide receiver Kelton Rainbacher along the sideline just before he laid him out with a rib-shaking shoulder tackle.
"Levi was a wonderful find for us, he's a stellar lacrosse player and a good kid too," said Clan head coach Jeff Morris. "Given that we had to cut our spring training a bit short [due to the teachers strike] he's done very well picking up the game. He's a natural athlete who is in his element as a running back and us running the ball on a wet day played to his strength."
The game was played under steady rain and the soaked field softened the landings on tackles but it wasn't quite cushiony enough for Cougars quarterback Josh Hamilton, who got launched into a faceplant in the opening quarter. Hamilton came up looking like the Swamp Thing, wearing a large piece of turf mashed into his helmet and grill. The impact left him with a broken nose.
Rainbacher scored the Cougars' only touchdown in the first quarter on a 60-yard toss from Hamilton, converted by Keely Finch, which cut the Clan lead to 14-7. The shortstaffed Cougars started the game with just three spare players, while Correlieu, with 16 spares, won the battle of attrition.
"Call it ironman ball," said Rainbacher, who also filled a linebacker position. "There are lot more injuries than people are showing out there. The team is hurting but what can you do, you just keep going. There's lots of injuries the team played through and you have to really give it to the team for pushing through like that.
"[Robertson] is fast, but that's our coverage too. If you don't have the coverage you're not going to get the tackle."
The Clan offensive line had great success blocking Cougars defensive ends Nick Girard and Ryan Payne and that opened up big holes for Robertson. Clan quarterback Damon Giesbrecht hooked up Garth Kennedy for a 24-yard TD catch and Giesbrecht hit Jeremy Mullin for a 45 -yard pass-and-run which capped the scoring in the fourth quarter.
"We've been losing all year and we're just trying as hard as we can to win everything, it just hasn't been a good year for us," said Cougars quarterback Hein Jordaan. "Our numbers haven't been good all year and we're lucky people haven't been seriously hurt."
The Clan, which went winless in six games last season, opened this season with a 16-point win over the Nechako Valley Vikings of Vanderhoof. They're now 2-1, while the Cougars fell to 0-3 while being outscored a combined 155-10.
"College Heights is a family, they work well together, it was just the breakdowns occurred and that's part of life," said Cougars head coach Scott Hamilton. "They still all show up for practice, they all show up for the game and they're playing tough."
In the late game Friday, the 3-0 Duchess Park Condors faced Nechako Valley. The score was unavailable at presstime.
