Bulldogs Youth Football League kicks off

The North Bay Bulldogs kicked off their 6th season of Youth Tackle Football League this past weekend with quite a change. The biggest change is in the number of kids playing football. We have grown from last year’s high of 64 kids to 89 kids this year with the expansion from 4 teams to 6 teams with 5 in North Bay and 1 team practicing in Sundridge / Powassan area. The new teams have been given CFL team names as are all the other teams in the league. The Almaguin Lions are in orange and the new North Bay team are the Eskimos in yellow and green.

With parents cheering and the kids out having fun playing football on a great sunny Saturday the 3 games took place with tons of excitement. Ecole Secondaire Algonquin is the host site for the Bulldogs Youth Tackle Football League this year which gives ESA a chance to showcase their facilities to the pre-high school football athletes and their families.

“Scollard has been the host for the past couple of years and we like to move it around to different schools and Algonquin with their new field was just the next suitable place,” said Marc Mathon – coordinator of the youth league.

In the first game Nick Webb scored 2 touchdowns and 2 converts and a single on a missed FG and Clayton Piche hauled in a 25 yard pass in the last minute of play to give the Argos the edge in a 23–16 win over the Ti-Cats. For the Ti-Cats Jackson Laporte scored on a 30 yard run in the first half and Kaelan Mathon connected with Quinlin McParland on a 44 yard pass and run for the Ti-Cats’ second major of the game. Rory Pecore scored both 2 point converts to round out the Ti-Cats 16 points.

In the second game the Eskimos opened the game with a score as Wanya Bessette returned the opening kick-off 75 yards to the endzone. That lead was short lived as John Giesler of the Almaguin Lions was on the receiving end of a 20 yard pass that he took another 30 yards to score. The Lions scored a 2 point convert to go ahead 8–6 at the end of the first quarter.

Late in the half Dustin Tessier scored for the Eskimos on an outside run and with a Wanya Bessette convert they took the lead 14–8. Later as the Lions were discovering they could pass suffered from an interception by Wanya Bessette who ran it all the way back and scored to increase the Eskimos’ lead. Also in the 3rd quarter Eric Lapointe took a handoff 55 yards to score and round out the Eskimos total at 28. The Lions defensive back Dexter Toebes came up with a big interception and returned it 60 yards for their second score. The Lions defense began to really get comfortable hitting and stopped the Eskimos offense. Russell Blandford was on the receiving end of a short pass and broke a couple of tackles and raced to the endzone to score. The game ended 28–20 in favour of the Eskimos, but the Lions discovered they can pass and tackle.

In the third game the Stamps and Riders battled it out but the Riders’ third year offensive back Paul Wilkinson proved to be a little too much for the Stamps defense for game 1. Paul Wilkinson scored 2 touchdowns by passing and also scored both accompanying converts. Matthew Morawski was the machine for the Stamps as he rushed for over 75 yards but wasn’t able to convert that into a touchdown until the 4th quarter. Marcus Williams for the Riders exploded with two very long runs that scored TDs which ended the game with a 30–8 score in favor of the Riders.

Submitted to BayToday.ca