The Ontario Varsity Football League (OVFL) Mississauga Warriors are off to the league finals.
The Warriors, who earned an unblemished 8-0 record during the regular season, added yet one more victory to their remarkable run this year, defeating their Etobicoke Eagles conference counterparts with crushing conviction yesterday afternoon 35-8 at Gilbert Field.
The hometown Warriors set the pace early in the opening quarter in front of a solid turnout of mostly local fans when quarterback Chris Rossetti drove into the Eagles' end zone with a 15-yard dash.
It proved to be almost all the Warriors would need, but the Cory Fernandes would add another touchdown before the Eagles could retort. The Warriors never looked back in the match.
The Eagles, who went 7-1 during the regular season, did show some signs of life in the game with a number of bursts of confidence, including making good on a touchdown and parlaying an easy extra point into two with a two-point conversion.
The sneak conversion brought the game to 14-8 but it was the closest the Eagles would get to the league championship this year.
It looked like the tide could quite easily turn though for the Warriors when the squad relinquished the football on their own 20 yard line after a series of sloppy offensive maneuvers.
The actions produced a fumble but uncertainty was put to rest for the hometown team when Natey Adjei and Rossetti — a combo that worked well all game — finally took over in the opening half.
The pair would combine for one more to close the first half at 21-8.
Despite a few bad snaps, some turnovers and a tense moment that saw emotions from both sides spill onto the field with just over a minute to play, the Warriors, who were again restricted to their short game, prevailed with the win and a berth in the league final.
"If you get thrown out you don't play in the big one," hollered a Warriors coach as the scuffle in the Eagles' end continued between the two sides. "Let the score talk."
Warriors head coach John Simas acknowledged that his charges played well in the conference final, but it was not a performance that exceeded his expectations.
The battle from here is all up hill for the Warriors.
"We're going," said a beaming and water soaked Simas, referring to the final, which goes 7 p.m. next Saturday at Varsity Stadium in Toronto. Warriors play Essex Ravens, who beat Niagara Spears 35-29 in triple OT.
Simas was the first victim in a series of traditional water soakings the Warriors coaching staff received from the elated Warriors players as the contest was winding down.
"It was what I had hoped, what I had expected," said Simas of his team's showing.
"We couldn'?t run the ball today which was a problem."
"They stopped us," he said in giving some credit to his opposition. "They put eight guys in the box to stop our running."
onlinenews@mississauga.net