USS Tigers football teams off to a rocky start
Roger Varley
With three games under their belts - two for the junior team and one for the senior team - the Uxbridge Secondary School Tigers football squads have taken a beating.
Last Thursday, the senior Tigers travelled to Courtice to face Holy Trinity Catholic School Titans. Aided by a safety in the first quarter, Holy Trinity came out of the first half with a 9-0 lead. Trinity started the second half with a march downfield for another touchdown, followed by a 40-yard pass for a score. With the conversion attempt blocked, the Titans now had a 22-0 lead.
In the fourth quarter, a Tigers pass attempt was intercepted, leading to more points on the scoreboard for the Titans. The Tigers finally scored after Gavin White ran from the Uxbridge 30-yard line to the Titans' 17-yard line, followed by a touchdown, for a final score of 29-6.
Following that game, the junior squad took to the field. Seven minutes into the game, Holy Trinity scored an unconverted touchdown and followed that with another touchdown and a two-point conversion for a 14-0 lead.
Uxbridge's Lou Harding had some impressive runs and ran in for a touchdown in the second quarter to halve the score. But there was no stopping the Titans as they scored two more touchdowns before the half was over.
In the third, the Tigers found themselves on Holy Trinity's two-yard line but a pass was intercepted and the Titans ran the ball back to midfield, leading to yet another touchdown. Dallas Tranter's 55-yard pass and run play gave the Tigers another touchdown to bring the score to 36-13. After the Titans scored again, Harding scored once more on a 70-yard pass-and-run effort. After the teams traded touchdowns, including another impressive run by Harding, the game ended with Trinity winning 50-29.
A week earlier at Tigers Field, an almost unstoppable running back led Oshawa's Paul Dwyer Catholic High School to a 35-0 victory over the Junior Tigers before a crowd of about 100 spectators.
It usually took three or four Tigers to bring down Carl Matthews, who scored Dwyer's first touchdown in the first quarter. He also played on defence, causing problems for the Tigers offence, to the extent that most possessions by the Tigers ended with USS punting on third downs.
The final score was 32-0 for the visitors.
Both squads will be facing Denis O'Connor High School in Ajax today (Thursday) and a week from now the juniors and seniors will be at home for the Tigers' Friday Night Lights game.