St. Ignatius juniors roll to easy semifinal win over Westgate

Jake Robertson and the St. Ignatius Falcons are a win away from a fourth straight high school junior football title.

Robertson caught a pair of first-quarter touchdown passes from quarterback Jordan Maki on Thursday evening, the first for a 55-yard score and the second a 99-yard dash up the middle of the Fort William Stadium field.

Add in a pair of rushing majors from Alex Gingras and a pair of scores from Aaron Puskas – including a 38-yard punt return – and the Falcons rolled into next Saturday’s final against the Hammarskjold Vikings, pounding the Westgate Tigers 54-6 in semifinal play.

The Falcons, who haven’t lost since the 2011 final, scored early and often against the Tigers, taking a 21-6 lead after the opening quarter and a 39-6 lead at the half.

Showing they were equally adept running the ball as passing it, St. Ignatius’ potent offensive attack is going to give the Vikings something to think about, Robertson said.

“It gives us another weapon. If you look at other teams, maybe they can’t do it as well. If you’re going to run, they can set their defence up to just contain the run. But if you can do both, it’s a whole different game,” Robertson said.

Getting back to the final once again is what the Falcons have been working at all season long. They’ve made it, but still have one hurdle to overcome.

“It’s a good accomplishment,” Robertson said. “We played hard to earn this. Nothing was given to us. The score might have told a different story, but we do work for this and we played well.”

Coach Mike Savioli said it was a great tune-up for the championship.

“It was a great game for us. Believe it or not, there’s still a lot of things to clean up. We took a lot of penalties in the first half. But we also did a lot of great things on the offensive side. Robertson had a great game as well as Gingras,” Savioli said.

“But we know come Saturday it’s going to be a tough hard game.”

The fourth-seeded Tigers just couldn’t muster any offence, held to just 116 total yards, 85 of them on the ground.

Quarterback Tanner House had Westgate’s lone score, sweeping to the right for a one-yard touchdown eight minutes into the first quarter, cutting the St. Ignatius lead to 14-6. The extra point was blocked. The Tigers were without star running back Hunter McKenzie for much of the contest after an injury on Westgate’s fourth play from scrimmage. McKenzie ran for 361 and three majors in Westgate’s quarterfinal win a week ago.

Gingras finished with 139 yards rushing, while Maki completed three of four passes for 166 yards and the two touchdowns to Robertson.

Hammarskjold 15, St. Patrick 13: Steven Burgess scored the lone touchdown for the Vikings, a five-yard, fourth-quarter run and Shayan Munawar booted a pair of field goals and two rouges as Hammarskjold earned a berth in the junior final. Mike Brown and Rhys Hooke accounted for the St. Patrick touchdowns.