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 HIGH JUMPER – Bellerose Bulldogs quarterback Quade Kozak leaps over D'Andre Plaizier of the Paul Kane Blues on a snowy Friday night in the Battle of St. Albert. Kozak was credited with an unofficial 130 rushing yards on 14 carries and in the third quarte

Bulldogs bite Blues

10/12/2016, 8:45am MDT
By Jeff Hansen - St. Albert Gazette

Bellerose blanks Paul Kane in Battle of St. Albert football showdown

The impact from the Battle of St. Albert left the Bellerose Bulldogs and Paul Kane Blues trending in opposite directions on the football field.

The Bulldogs are on the upswing at 3-3 after their second consecutive victory, 19-0 against the Blues in Friday's snowstorm at Riel Recreation Park.

“This was the game we wanted to win,” said Nick Allen, an excited Grade 12 Bulldog. “We fed off that energy and we became a team tonight.”

The Blues are 1-4 with two losses in a row after going 8-3 last year as the Carr conference division one finalists in the metro Edmonton league and Tier II provincial north semifinalists.

“It's a pretty disappointing game for us but they for sure gave it their all. They played us harder than we've seen from any team so far,” said Keaton Zaychkowsky of the Blues. “We played some sloppy offence and some sloppy defence. At times we gave it our all and at times we didn't. We could've played a lot better than we did.”

The Blues have three games remaining before the Tier II (school population 750 to 1,249 students) north playdowns kick-off Nov. 12 in Edmonton to steer the ship back on course. The Blues, unranked in Tier II, and the eighth-ranked Austin O'Brien Crusaders (3-2) will represent the metro league against the No. 1-ranked St. Joseph's Celtics of Grande Prairie of the Mighty Peace league and the Wheatland/Fort McMurray region rep. The Lloydminster Barons (4-2) of the Wheatland league is ninth in Tier II.

Leading up to provincials for the Blues are games against a pair of Carr powerhouses – Harry Ainlay Titans (7:30 p.m. Thursday) and Bev Facey Falcons (Oct. 21) in St. Albert – and the winless Salisbury Sabres (Oct. 28 in Sherwood Park).

Facey (5-0) and Ainlay (6-0) are ranked second and fourth, respectively, in Tier I (1,250-plus students) and their Oct. 28 match will determine who wins the Carr championship banner and this year it's based on the final regular season standings instead of the traditional playoff format.

“Right now we're thinking about our run in this league. We're working on the league first and (Tier II) is added on at the end of the year,” Zaychkowsky said. “We're going to play two great teams, the two top two teams in the league, and we're going to play them hard and then hopefully that will translate into the Tier II provincial run.”

The last game for the Blues was the 22-8 loss to AOB.

“I wouldn't say this was a better game than AOB. I would say it's around the same. The fact we lost our quarterback in that game and myself being the backup and being not as experienced at that position, it was kind of hard for me but I believe that if we would've had Connor (Guy) for that whole AOB game at quarterback we could've done some damage,” Zaychkowsky said.

The Bulldogs are poised to huddle up against the Spruce Grove Panthers (3-2) or Jasper Palace Rebels (3-3) in the Championship Saturday metro Tier I qualifier Nov. 5, featuring six of the seven Tier I teams in the Carr. The three playoff winners advance to the Tier I north semifinals Nov. 12.

The Bulldogs, Panthers and Rebels are tied for the third Tier I playoff seed in the Carr and Friday's result put Bellerose in position to avoid Facey and Ainlay in the Tier I qualifier.

The Bulldogs close out league play against the Panthers in a big game Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. at Fuhr Sports Park and the winless Ross Sheppard Thunderbirds on Oct. 28.

“Even if we do have to play Bev Facey or Harry Ainlay we'll be ready. With the coaching we have they'll prepare us pretty well,” Allen said. “If it wasn't for the coaches preparing us like they did this week for this game it wouldn't have been a shutout.”

The Bulldogs turned the page on a slow 1-3 start with a storybook come-from-behind 21-17 decision Sept. 30 against Rebels, who beat the Blues 24-6 in the Carr opener.

The turning point for the Bulldogs, according to Allen, was losing 27-12 to AOB on Sept. 23 after trailing 14-4 at halftime.

“After we lost to AOB, coach O (Larry Olexiuk) said it was a new season and we're now 0-0 so when we beat Jasper Place we were 1-0 and coming into this game everyone on the team wanted it. We want to keep winning,” Allen said. “Chad (Hill, the head coach) said we're ‘24 Strong' and we took that to heart too. We know we have to play for each other. We can't take a play off and slack off, we have to play hard and we have to have each other's backs.”

That dogged determination by the Bulldogs left the Blues reeling.

“The difference for sure was their will on every single play. Of course we had the will in some plays. We tried hard but there was that one play or two plays or three plays where one guy gives up or one guy misses a block and that sums up the game; a couple of big plays for them and a couple of big plays that we could've had in turn,” said Zaychkowsky, 17, a dangerous running back/slotback hybrid player who recently committed to the Alberta Golden Bears.

The Bulldogs rose to the challenge on defence to stop the Blues in their tracks. According to stats supplied by Bellerose, which are unofficial, the Blues recorded only seven first downs and two were by penalties and another was on a 45-yard run late in the first half by Zaychkowsky and Paul Kane's best player.

The Bulldogs were credited with nine quarterback sacks: four by Ben VanLeeuwen, three by Kyle Viczko and one each for Allen and Brendan Laycock.

The Bellerose stats list the Blues completing four of 18 passes for 44 yards.

Logan McCullough also picked off a pass at the Bellerose 51 with 4:47 left in the game and the Bulldogs leading by 13 and made a couple of key catches in the first half

The Blues also gave up two safeties in punt formation with Zaychkowsky taking a knee in the endzone with 1:13 left in the first quarter to make it 3-0 and with 2:03 to go before halftime to put the Bulldogs up by five.

“Our stops on defence were huge,” said Allen, a tenacious defensive end who also lines up at centre. “It was a hard fought game. We had them pretty much down in their end and we just kept stopping them all game and that's what we needed to do.”

A blocked punt by Travis Heggart after the Bulldogs held the Blues in check on their first series paved the way for VanLeeuwen's 21-yard field goal attempt that was wide of the posts for a single point 5:13 into the game. Prior to field goal, a four-yard touchdown run by Brett Yost was called back because of holding against the Bulldogs.

After the second safety of the half, the Bulldogs drove the ball from their 35 as the Blues were flagged twice for unnecessary roughness and the first penalty resulted in an injury to Yost. Quade Kozak's quarterback sneak on third and inches to the Paul Kane 19 kept the Bulldogs marching. They would settle for anther single off VanLeeuwen's 31-yard field goal attempt with 39.8 seconds before the break.

The half ended with Heggart knocking down a pass in coverage with the Blues at the Bellerose 36.

The first possession for the Bulldogs in the second half was an 84-yard scoring drive, highlighted by a 26-yard over-the-shoulder catch by Cordel Callioux, a Paul Kane junior last year, in single coverage near the sideline to the Bellerose 52. Kozak kept the ball moving with a first-down run, then on second down hit Heggart for a completion at the 24. On first down, Kozak bolted into the endzone and VanLeeuwen converted the TD with 7:22 left until quarter time.

VanLeeuwen finished with 54 yards on eight carries and led the defence with seven tackles, one more than Viczko.

“That was a big play when Quade ran that ball in. It got everyone excited,” Allen said.

Kozak, a Grade 11 student and one of five Sturgeon Composite High School players on the Bellerose roster, was the man of the match with an unofficial 130 yards on 14 carries and was 7-for-14 passing for 96 yards.

Late in the game, Kozak's lengthy run on the snow-covered field put the Bulldogs at the Paul Kane 14 and on the next play VanLeeuwen scored with 1:34 to play to seal the deal on the second Bellerose win ever against the Blues. The Bulldogs prevailed 26-6 in 2012 in the second year for the Paul Kane football program after serving as a feeder school for the St. Albert High Skyhawks' football team and last year the Blues won 6-3 in the rain and wind.

“To play like we did, especially with this weather, it's just surreal,” said Allen, 17, one of 14 seniors in the Bellerose lineup in the St. Albert showdown. “I wouldn't want to go to any other school and play for any other coach than Chad Hill and this coaching staff.”

Hill was gracious in victory during the post-game chat with his players.

“We've got bragging rights for the year but you know what guys; they're fighting hard like us. They have a short roster and they're down bodies so give them credit for a well played game,” Hill stressed. “Defence, we shut them down and you shut them out. Offence, it wasn't always pretty but with weather like this you've got to be able to run the ball and we had one of our top backs go out but Quade and Benny, way to get hard yards and O-line, way to keep grinding.

“I'm proud of you boys. Going into a long weekend does this feel good, or what?”

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