St. Clair Saints take home Canadian Bowl title
It’s been 25 years since the Canadian Bowl was won by a team from Ontario, but the drought is over.
The St. Clair College football team made an electric comeback during the Canadian Junior Football League (CJFL) national championship game Saturday and brought home the title with a 37-22 win over the Okanagan Sun.
“Didn’t go right for us right away,” said head coach Mike Lachance, who was an assistant coach when the AKO Fratmen (Alpha Kai Omega Fraternity, started by Windsor high school students) won the title in 1999.
His Saints could not find their groove in the first half and trailed 22-9 at the break. Lachance admitted to being a little worried, but a talk with quarterback Maurice Sodja calmed the situation down.
“He said, coach, just trust me, I trust you. You trust me, we'll win this game. Let me just take the game over,” said Lachance.
Sodja did just that. He opened the second half with a 51-yard strike to Cameron St. Kitts-Park, that landed St. Clair inside the five-yard line.
Sodja took matters into his own hands and punched it in to cut the deficit to 22-16.
Billy Patterson Junior made a clutch interception on defense, which led to another Sodja touchdown on the next series. Just like that, the tide had turned with St. Clair no longer playing catch up, leading 23-22.
“We were moving the ball all through the first half. We just weren't finishing,” Sodja said.
“We came out, in second half came back, we started finishing. When we started finishing, we kept our foot on the gas, and we put it away.”
Early in the fourth quarter, Anthony Adams pounced on a botched snap that eluded Okanagan quarterback Liam Kroeger.
That set St. Clair up on the Suns’ four-yard line. Sodja followed up by carrying home his third touchdown of the night.
Later in the quarter, he hit Tai Colquhoun with an 11-yard slant pass for the final touchdown of the game, as St. Clair ascended to the top of the Canadian junior football mountain.
“This team deserves it,” said St. Kitt’s-Park.
“Everyone all year saying Ontario wasn’t this, Ontario wasn’t that. I’m just thankful. Words can’t explain it.”
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