The Terry Fox Ravens were ready to celebrate until they couldn’t.
They had a 14-7 lead with no time remaining – at least on the scoreboard.
Ruled that there was a second left and another gasp for the trailing New Westminster Hyacks, the B.C. Subway Bowl AAA football championship turned on a hail mary throw and a two-point convert.
In the eyes of Terry Fox’s co-coaches, the all-important touchdown that came with no time left on the score clock wasn’t a catch – New West’s Severio Asaba bobbled and dropped the ball, they said, while under pressure from defensive back Mitch Bye.
Asaba pulled down quarterback Kinsale Philip’s 16-yard pass in the end zone, and the men in stripes on both sides signaled a touchdown. A few moments later, the Hyacks’ Lucas Sabau bowled through a wall of Fox defenders for two points, capping a fantastic 15-14 comeback Saturday at B.C. Place.
It’s a hard way to lose a football game.
“The rules are very clear and simple, we see it all on TV many times,” remarked Fox co-coach Tom Kudaba. “You have to have control when they come down with the ball … the ball was on the ground and they take it away from you sometimes. What can you do?”
In so many ways, Fox did what no other team had managed to do against the super-charged New West offence this season.
Credit to the defence, which had held the multi-dimensional Hyack offence off-balance for much of the night.
It looked like they had successfully repelled New West on its final drive, which saw them connect on a fourth-and-nine desperation play from the Hyacks own 40-yard line. Philip hit Matthew Lalim with 10 seconds left, and then found Sebastien Reid on a long bomb that Reid caught and came down with at the Fox 16-yard line. The big clock said the game was over while the officials said there was still a second to play. It was the start of the end for Fox’s hopes of a second straight title.
The Ravens built a 14-0 advantage in the first half and stifled New West’s running game. Cade Cote gave the underdog PoCo squad the lead 32 seconds into the second quarter when he busted out with an 89-yard run.
That lead grew on the spark provided by Jaden Severy, who intercepted a Philip pass at Fox’s 40-yard line and brought it within 40 yards of the end zone. Six plays later – including a fourth-and-six from the New West 36-yard line that saw Jevaun Jacobsen dance it to the one-yard line – Cote doubled the lead, with Albert Arancena kicking his second convert.
The Ravens began the second half with a 13-play, 59-yard march that got them inside New West’s 20, but the field goal attempt fell short.
New West, which entered the contest having averaged 38 points a game during the regular season, finally got on the scoreboard with 3:01 left in the third quarter. A six-play drive, brought to the Terry Fox’s five yard line on Sebastien Reid’s 38-yard scamper, ended with Philip carrying it across on a short keeper.
Fortune appeared to be leaning towards the Ravens again, after Jacobsen stripped the ball from New West running back Sammy Sidhu 30 seconds into the fourth quarter, giving Fox the ball at midfield.
But the New West defence stood its ground and got the ball back five plays later.
Neither team was able to put together a serious threat over the next few possessions, and Philip again would be picked off, this time by Jacobsen. It would lead to an unsuccessful 22-yard field goal attempt with 2:55 left on the clock.
It set the stage for the Hyacks final march, which covered 80 yards and the remaining 2:55 – or more.
“(Reid) fought and went down, and there was still a second left so at that point you can’t spike it, we didn’t have a timeout; you just have to take a chance,” New Westminster coach Farhan Lalji said of the last gasp pass to Asaba. “The surprise is, because (Philip) is so married to Sebastien, even when every read tells him to throw elsewhere he’ll throw to Sebastien. For him to throw it to Sev at that moment was unbelievable.”
It was the perfect redemption for Philip, who agreed it had been a tough day prior to the final drive.
“I wanted to make it up to my teammates,” said Philip, who finished four-for-12, with all four completions coming in the fourth quarter. “Those (two) interceptions were not like me, those decisions were not like me. Everything came together in the end, I do it for my senior (teammates), I’ve been with them since I was eight years old, they’re my brothers forever.”
Unable to hold back tears in celebrating the program’s first championship since being relaunched in 2003, Lalji said so many things came together to make it happen.
“There was a lot of good fortune that happened here. Fox played a very, very good football game defensively. They’re well coached, it’s hard to stop our offence because we have so many weapons. Sometimes you just have to fight and scrap and not really care what it looks like but just find a way to win.”
For the Ravens, getting within a second of being back-to-back champions and upsetting the No. 1 team is going to resonate sometime down the road. It was a powerful performance in many ways, but a couple of plays fell in the other guy’s favour. Right now, it just stings.
“Certainly we felt we were in position to win the game and it comes down to the very last play of the game with no time on the clock,” said Kudaba. “You get a call against you and so be it. What do you do? It’s a tough one. I’m happy for (New West), someone has to win and lose, but to lose like that is a tough one for our kids, that’s for sure.”
