Last team with the ball wins.
And it was Cochrane’s Evan Perrault clutching the rock as the final whistle blew on a 25-24 Calgary Bantam Football Association win over Calgary Cowboys Navy.
With the Cowboys kicking for a single point to tie it up, Perrault scooped the ball just behind his goal line and lunged forward out of the endzone to preserve the Bantam Lions win Sept. 29 at Calgary’s Shouldice Park.
The Lions are 6-0 in league play.
“This is the first time we’ve ever beat them (Cowboys Navy). This is a really nice one,” said Lions head coach Jeff Avery immediately following the contest as players celebrated the victory.
“This was huge.”
On the game’s final play, Perrault waited for a punt that fell just in front of him and just into the endzone.
“I missed it a little bit and had to kind of dive on it. Almost lost control,” said Perrault of the game’s final and deciding play. “That was scary. I was thinking ‘I gotta get out. I gotta get out.’
“It was really close.”
And it was close throughout as the top two teams in the CBFA’s North Division went back and forth, with the teams exchanging touchdowns in the final 37 seconds of the first half.
Calgary was working well on the ground with deceptive quarterback sprints and David Gutierrez running the ball.
“The linebackers, we just stayed back, we were on our man,“ said Lions’ Cole Martin of shutting down a team that had averaged 53 points per game on offence prior to tackling Cochrane.
With Calgary working the ground game, the Lions put quarterback Des Catellier to work, throwing a 48-yard touchdown pass to Eric Nusl and hitting Perrault on a 50-yard, pass-and-run play that set up Perrault’s 12-yard TD.
“They keyed on Evan in the first half,” Avery observed of Calgary’s defence. “And Eric Nusl was lights-out every time we threw the ball to him.”
With Cochrane’s offence spreading the ball around, the defence just had to ensure no one was running past them.
“Our defence played pretty good,” said Lions defensive back Ethan Forrest. “We all did our jobs and came together in the end.
“We just needed everybody to do their jobs,” said Forrest. “Everybody played well.”
