Photo by Kate Adams. The West Ferris Trojans seemed to thrive off the energy from their huge home crowd Friday night, at the Trojan Alumni Complex in senior NDA football action.
The West Ferris Trojans seemed to thrive off the energy from their huge home crowd Friday night, at the Trojan Alumni Complex in senior NDA football action. The stands, filled throughout the game with fans of the green and white, roared from start to finish, as the home crowd watched their Trojans (2-0) put a 49-0 pounding to the helpless Algonquin Barons (1-1).
What appeared on paper to be a quality match between two teams that surrendered a combined 6 points in week one, turned out to be a lopsided slaughtering of the Barons at the hands of West Ferris. Algonquin Head Coach Mike Ohlman thought his team’s inexperience was the key factor in the blowout.
“We have lots of grade 11 kids and this was a learning experience for them, so I’m not surprised or disappointed in the overall game and I’m not surprised that the other team beat us,” Ohlman explained from the field after the game.
In light of the Barons one-sided loss, Ohlman seemed positive about his team growing from the loss and only getting better as the season goes on.
“Hopefully we’ve learned something from this,” Ohlman explained. “We’ve warned them all week to expect the best from the Trojans…Obviously Scollard’s going to be a big game next week, but we’re hoping to compete with the rest of the teams in the league.”
An all around effort from the green and white’s offense and defense proved to be too much for the Barons to handle. With the Trojans defense smothering the Barons rushing attack while leaving little space for error on their pass defense, Algonquin couldn’t generate any kind of offense and were out of the game early.
Ferris’ wide receiver, Dustin Anthony opened the scoring with the first of his three touchdowns on the night with just over two minutes on the clock in the first quarter to put the home team up 6-0. The Trojan’s wouldn’t look back, putting the game out of reach well before half time and taking a 35-0 lead into the third quarter. Other major’s for the Trojans came from wide receiver Tommy Conrad, who found the end-zone twice, while running backs Steve Bertram and Dave Staniszewski pitched in with a touchdown each to help their winning cause.
Despite the 49 points the Trojans racked up onto the scoreboard, the story of the night was their spectacular defensive play. While covering all angles and holes on defense, the West Ferris Trojans have strung together back-to-back shutout victories to start their season.
“We have some really good key guys back on defense, you know, Justin Breare, Nathan kunkal and those guys are doing a great job for us. Honestly, I will tell you, I think we lost the best player in the NDA, and I know what people will think, but he (Phil Dampier) is the best defensive player I have coached in a long time and he’s totally committed to the game of football,” Tougas said sincerely.
"We didn’t miss a beat thanks to a lot of other key guys we have on defense, but it’s too bad this league’s not going to be able to see Phil Dampier play the entire season because they’re missing out on a great football player and great person.”
The night game was the first of its kind for NDA senior football as part of ‘Friday night football in North Bay’. While the huge lights beaming down onto the field aren’t a permanent fixture for every game, they surely created a true football atmosphere.
“I think it’s great for football, I think it’s the next step for football,” Tougas said of the night game. “When you have 1,500 to 2,000 people watching a football game…that tells you a lot.”
With the success of the night game in terms of attracting such a large crowd as well as giving the field the atmosphere it needs with the lights and attention, Tougas believes every Sr. NDA football game should be played in those conditions.
“I think by having it tonight we have no choice,” Tougas stated.
"The referees like it the fans like it. Seniors need to play at seven or eight o’clock prime time and everyone needs a chance to go watch those kids play. They do it in the Sault and now they do it in Sudbury - you know, we just have to get with the times. It’s probably pretty well the norm now across the province,” the West Ferris Coach added.
The undefeated Trojans look to extend their shutout streak next Friday the 24th at 8:00pm, when they play host the Chippewa Raiders at the Trojan Alumni Complex. Meanwhile, the Barons will look to bounce back on home field against the defending Sr. NDA champion St. Joseph Scollard Hall Bears at Rollie Fischer field, with the kickoff being at 7:00pm.
In Jr. Boy’s NDA football action the Trojans lost 27-16 to Algonquin.
