Bulldogs preparing for playoffs (new)

The North Bay Bulldogs received some help to make the Northern Football Conference playoffs.
Now they have the do the rest themselves.
Even though they lost to the Oshawa Hawkeyes in their final league game, the Bulldogs reached the quarterfinals.
And it was all thanks to their rivals, the Sudbury Spartans, who edged the Sault Ste. Marie Steelers 31-30.
But that’s now all in the past.
Head coach Marc Mathon is confident his Bulldogs can advance to the semifinals.
“There’s a good chance we will face Oshawa again in the quarterfinals, “ he said. “This time we hope to have all of our players.”
For various reasons, some players were missing in last weekend’s loss including punter and kicker Ricky Thompson.
The Bulldogs outplayed the Hawkeyes offensively, but could not capitalize on their chances.
Bulldogs running game is certainly their strength as Mick Bilz rushed for 166 yards.
“The offensive line is just starting to jell together,” Mathon said. “They are having fun coming to practise and it’s showing in the games. The very fact we rushed for 201 yards behind this new offensive line is a sign of a truly powerful offensive line unit forming.”
The passing game was North Bay’s trouble as Oshawa snuffed out three productive drives by intercepting quarterback Dave Wilson three times.
“The offensive line that we are building is right now one of the league’s strongest and they are very young. They get along well and as they play more together, they will become the league’s best offensive line,” offensive line coach Nathan Lavigne said.
“A combination of injuries and personal commitments kept some guys away from this game,” Mathon added.
“We were in field goal position twice and Ricky would have made both of them,” Mathon said. “We had to ask another player to kick for us and on our touchdown the convert hit the upright to keep us four points behind, late in the fourth quarter.”
As the game went on, the Bulldogs defence shut down the Hawkeye offence in the second half.
The Bulldogs drove down to the 30-yard line and attempted a field goal that went wide.
Then with the offensive unit blocking and Bilz’s tough running, the Dogs offence put together a 65-yard drive to score a touchdown.
The convert hit the goal post leaving the Dogs behind 10–6 rather then 10–7.
With two minutes left the defence held and forced a punt.
The Dogs took over the ball on their own 40 with one minute and 12 seconds left. Their drive ended on the 18-yard line with one play to try to get it in the end zone. The receiver was open, but stumbled and unable to haul the ball in for the winning TD.
The missed convert was costly since it prevented the Dogs from kicking the game tying field goal from the 18 to send them into overtime.
“I’m extremely proud of the guys who played because they showed some real warrior like courage to stand up against the odds and we almost knocked off the second place team,” Mathon added.
“Some of the guys felt let down by the players who were not there. My understanding is that there were personal circumstances preventing them from attending. I hope that was the case,” Mathon said.
Statistically, the Bulldogs held the Hawkeyes to only 34 yards rushing and 113 yards passing.
The Bulldogs defence expected a scrambling QB and got one in Jeremy Mussche, who completed nine of 29 pass attempts.
“There was great pass rushing by our defence as we hurried Mussche six times, sacked him once and ran him down for a loss again at the sideline. The Hawkeyes were missing only one player from their regular offensive lineup, but we stuffed them for losses a total of 10 times including one sack,” Mathon said.
The Bulldog defensive backfield made fewer mistakes, but still allowed a TD to a wide receiver down the sideline from a broken coverage.
The Dogs have the final week of the regular season off with a bye and the quarterfinal game is scheduled for Saturday Aug. 7.
If there are no upsets this weekend, the Bulldogs will face Oshawa.