THUNDER BAY – A matter of inches was all that stood between the St. Patrick Saints and their first win of 2019.
Unfortunately for the Saints, the Westgate Tigers managed to make just enough of a push to keep Payton Littleford out of the end zone on a two-point conversion attempt with just seconds left on the clock on Friday afternoon at Fort William Stadium.
The senior Saints battled back with last-second score, Colin Wiseman connecting with Jordan Malench on a 22-yard touchdown pass that pulled winless St. Patrick to within a point. The team decided to go for two and the win, rather than kick the convert and a likely tie, only to come up short and had to settle for a 13-12 defeat.
Despite not earning their first victory of the season, there were plenty of positives, said Wiseman, whose team had only put up a single point in four previous games.
“We had a great week of practice this week, worked real hard on our whole game, and obviously we came out here an executed,” Wiseman said.
“The boys were all pumped up and ready to play and we got it done today. It’s not the outcome we wanted, but we’re proud of ourselves.”
The veteran signal-caller said he’s not convinced Littleford, who chewed up the turf most of the afternoon for the Saints, didn’t cross the plane on his conversion attempt.
“If I’m being honest, I think that was in,” Wiseman said. “He got dragged out of there, but we’re not going to worry about that. We know we were in the end zone there. We had a great game.”
It’s a game that looked for the longest time might end in a 6-6 tie.
St. Patrick scored first, Littleford dashing home from two yards out midway through the first quarter , and took a 6-0 lead, the extra point no good.
It took Westgate a full quarter to even the score.
The Tigers marched down the field, but it took a sliding catch by Tystan Basalyga in the Saints end zone on a five-yard, third-down pass from quarterback Kam Vanderwees to tie things up.
“I was the deepest guy and seemed pretty open. I saw my quarterback’s eyes light up and I knew the ball was coming to me,” Basalyga said.
The Tigers had a chance to take the lead early in the third, but Vanderwees fired it over the head of a wide-open Baslayga and St. Patrick took over on down at their own 17.
Led by the rushing of Brendan Hall, the Tigers marched to the Saints four-yard line to open the fourth and Hunter McLean took it home from there, giving Westgate its first lead of the game at the 7:22 mark of the final quarter.
The Saints answered right back, Littleford slashing and dashing his team deep into Westgate territory. Matt Sacino scored on the ground from seven yards out, only to have it called back on a holding call that dropped the green and gold 10 yards further out. Wiseman was sacked on the ensuing first down and threw an incompletion to Littleford before hooking up with Malench for the potential game-tying major.
Basalyga said the defence just tightened up enough on the two-point try.
“It’s a good win and we just need to build from here,” he said.
The Saints fell to 0-5-0 with the loss, the Tigers improving to 2-2-1.
