After 10 wins and no losses, all that stood between the College Heights Cougars double-A junior varsity football team and a trip to the provincial final were the Windsor Dukes.
The Cougars and Dukes met Wednesday afternoon in a sudden-death semifinal playoff at Hillside Stadium in Kamloops and for three quarters College Heights had the lead.
That fourth quarter was the killer for Cougars. Windsor scored touchdowns in their first two drives of the final quarter and hung on to win 34-24.
"They're a good team, they fought really hard in the second half and we kind of got unfortunate on the short kicks," said Cougars tailback/cornerback Austin Adams, who scored all four of the Cougars' touchdowns.
"We had good competition and that was our best game so far. It hurts but you've got to move on. It was back-and-forth all game long. I guess they got lucky in the end."
Leading 24-21, on their opening drive of the third quarter the Cougars got the ball down to the Windsor first-and-goal on the two-yard line but could not punch it in.
In the fourth quarter the Dukes marched the length of the field and scored on a five-yard quarterback sneak from Alex Giragosian to take a 27-24 lead. Right after that, Windsor recovered a short kickoff and scored another touchdown on 12-yard pass up the middle to Simon Capobianco. The Dukes tried the short kick again and got the ball back but didn't score. The Windsor defence came up big and shut down the Cougars' running game and they ran out the clock.
Windsor will advance to the B.C. Secondary Schools Football Association double-A junior varsity Subway Bowl, Dec. 2 at B.C. Place Stadium in Vancouver against the winner of Wednesday's John Barsby (Nanaimo)-G.W. Graham (Chilliwack) playoff.
The Dukes had a 7-0 lead in the first quarter but the Cougars answered right away when Adams scored his first major of the day on a 75-yard kickoff return to pull to within a point. Not long after that, Adams found the end zone on a short run for a 12-7 College Heights lead.
In the second quarter, Adams hooked up with quarterback Jerome Erickson for a 60-yard catch and run. The Dukes scored two more TDs before the 15-year-old Adams made it a 24-21 count on another running play late in the second quarter.
Adams and Hayden Matheson each intercepted Giragosian passes in the first half.
"It was close man, they're a passing team with a good mobile quarterback (Giragosian) and we took away the pass and made them go to the run," said Cougars assistant coach Tommy Heinzelman. "We couldn't keep him in the pocket, he was keeping the ball and he scored a couple touchdowns.
"I'm very proud of the team, we played a good game. We had a great season and the boys made a lot of plays but we didn't execute towards the end of the second half and they did and we came up short."
College Heights advanced to the semifinal with a 33-19 win over South Kamloops two weekends ago at Masich Place Stadium.
