Bellerose Bulldogs Football

Spruce Grove – Thursday’s win felt like a loss for the undefeated Bellerose Bulldogs.

The Carr division one contest wasn’t decided until the last play of the game as the Bulldogs avoided an epic collapse against the winless Spruce Grove Panthers.

“It’s a big wakeup call. It wasn’t a good win at all,” said Mike Woywitka, a two-way Grade 12 lineman, following a lengthy closed-door players’ only meeting after the 41-35 squeaker.

“Guys came in too cocky and didn’t put everything on the line like they should have,” Woywitka added as the Bulldogs filed out of the locker room with glum faces and bowed heads. “It was definitely a big eye-opener.”

The Bulldogs, slotted third in the Football Alberta top-10 Tier I (1,250-plus students) rankings, are 5-0 despite almost blowing a 41-21 lead with under five minutes to play.

“It’s nice to say you won a game but it’s just something on paper. You’ve still got to go out there and prove you are the best,” Woywitka said.

It was 31-13 after three quarters when the Bulldogs started to choke on their lead.

After the Panthers scored their third TD of the quarter they recovered a short kickoff that bounced off a Bulldog and the special team unit recovered it near midfield with 10.5 seconds remaining. A run play was followed by an incomplete pass as the Bulldogs escaped Fuhr Sports Park with two points.

“We made it harder on ourselves. Spruce (0-4-1) is a well coached football team and they have some big, strong and fast players but by no means should it have come down to a final play,” said head coach Chad Hill with smoke billowing out of his ears prior to delivering a colourful tongue-lashing in the locker room that vibrated the cement walls.

“This is what happens if you think you can show up and win just by wearing a jersey,” Hill stressed before addressing the guilty-as-charged Bulldogs. “We will not come out onto a football field and be better athletically and more gifted and talented than anybody else in division one. You have to earn wins in division one football. It’s not the Miles conference and it’s not junior football, it’s division one football and teams will score on you, teams will play tough defence and they will figure you out. You’ve got to come prepared and unfortunately I feel like we weren’t as prepared as we should’ve been and I take responsibility for that. The letdown is ultimately on me and I’m not happy about it. I hope to see much improvement at practice.”

The Bulldogs opened the scoring on Nick Cowan’s 12-yard field goal on the first play of the second quarter.

A few minutes later Morgan Sherban hooked up with Corbin Stewart for a 57-yard TD reception after Seth Waselenchuk recovered a lateral.

The Panthers capitalized on Sherban’s first interception of the season for a 15-yard TD pass completion with one minute remaining in the half.

In the third quarter, converted TDs of 35-yards on a great catch in the endzone by Waselenchuk, Sherban’s 30-yard romp up the gut and a 67-yard gallop by Tyler Feltis extended the lead to 31-7

Cowan’s 22-yard field goal with 7:51 to play after a fumble recovery by the Bulldogs widened the gap to 34-13.

“The first half was hard fought and in the second half we took advantage of wearing them down. Our offence started to get into gear and our defence was shutting them down and we had a comfortable lead so much so that we had backup players get into the game, which is great, but the execution fell apart and I think it was a mental letdown,” Hill said.

“It was also a very disappointing performance from the defence in the fourth quarter. There is no way we should let a team come back from several touchdowns down. It’s a good thing we put our starters back in in the fourth quarter to get one more score. Feltis got what was the winning touchdown (27-yard run with 4:29 to play and the convert made it 41-21) and that was with the starters back in again and key blocks by our starting offensive line but it goes to show you that in division one football you can’t take the foot off the pedal.”

A staggering amount of pass interference flags (a few were questionable) also allowed the Panthers to gain traction in the comeback charge.

The inability of the offence to gain an inch on third down in front of the Bellerose 15, which resulted in a 15-yard TD pass by the Panthers with 12 seconds to play, was another sore point.

“We definitely have to work on a lot of things. We need to get good turnouts at practice and guys working 100 per cent to turn things around,” said Woywitka, 17, a six-foot-three right tackle and defensive end from Sturgeon Composite High School. “We’ve got a lot of athletes and a lot of good guys on the team that know the plays and what to do. We’ve just got to go out there and execute and commit.”

Thursday the Bulldogs play the Harry Ainlay Titans (2-2) at 7 p.m. at Foote Field. Admission is $5.