WINDSOR — A stellar campaign for the Westgate Tigers ended with a down note on Tuesday afternoon.
After taking a 14-4 lead into halftime, the Tigers were unable to stop the Frontenac Falcons over the final two quarters as the Kingston school came away with a 25-14 victory at the OFSAA Northern Bowl in Windsor.
Despite the loss, Tigers head coach Mike McNally was proud of how his players performed against a perennial power in Ontario high school football.
“I’m on the field right now watching several (post-secondary) coaches talk to our players,” McNally said.
“This is a program builder for us. We can take what we learned here and tell that to our junior players who will be joining our team next season.”
Even though their season didn’t end like they wanted, McNally hoped that the players could take a lot away from the OFSAA experience.
“The coaches had Frontenac ranked third in the province and us at 24,” McNally said. “I think we showed today that we can play with them.
“We definitely had a great first half and our boys were ready to go, but we had a couple of untimely turnovers and that ended up being the big difference.”
Tuesday’s setback was the first of the season for the Tigers.
They had gone a perfect 8-0 in SSSAA play and captured their first title since 2019 on Nov. 9 with a 44-14 triumph over the St. Patrick Fighting Saints.
On a day where windy conditions caused havoc with both teams passing attacks, it was the Tigers’ ground game that proved effective early.
After Cole McVety recovered a fumble on a Frontenac punt return, deep in their opponent’s territory, Lance Basalyga took advantage with a three-yard end-around rush for a touchdown.
Tyler Rose would later punch the ball in from a yard out to give the Tigers a 14-0 advantage with 2:57 left on the clock in the opening quarter.
The Falcons got on the board in the second quarter on a pair of conceded safeties, but they had chances to get touchdowns before halftime.
One of their drives ended with a turnover on downs in the red zone and another ended when quarterback Jack Day threw an interception into the arms of Chase Macsemchuk.
The Tigers started the third quarter off strong when McVety took a reverse on the kickoff and returned the ball down to the Falcons 30-yard line.
Things went south after that however, as quarterback Mitch Papineau was sacked by Carter Curtis-Winter and was picked off on a pass attempt by Owen Evans on consecutive plays.
Falcons running back Owen Rouleau, who was a powerful force throughout the game, scored touchdowns from the one- and four-yard lines on back-to-back turnovers to put his team in front 17-14.
The momentum stayed in Frontenac’s favour on the ensuing kickoff as Ryan Craig punched the ball out of Basalyga’s hands and recovered the fumble at Westgate’s 35-yard line.
Ty Huddlestone completed the scoring for the Falcons early in the fourth quarter on a five-yard touchdown pass from Day.