#CFCHSFB PREVIEW (ONT): Injured Lions look to contain Jaguars offence in TD Place battle

The St. Mark Lions will be taking on the St. Joseph Jaguars Wednesday night at TD Place to kick off the National Capital Seconary School Athletic Association (NCSSAA) season.

The Lions have a tall task ahead of them as they are facing a strong opening while playing with a depleted roster facing a larger school with some quality players according to Coach Paul Brown.

Brown said the Lions have several significant injuries on both sides of the ball with their starting quarterback, two-way lineman, and wide receiver all going down in a scrimmage earlier this week. The Ontario Leadership camp taking place this week is also stealing some players from the Lions.

“The play package is going to be reduced on both sides of the ball,” said Brown.  “It’s going to be more of a meat and potatoes type of game, but other guys are just going to have to step in and learn on the fly.”

The injury to their starting quarterback who is undergoing the necessary concussion protocol poses the biggest threat to the Lions chances at victory.

“We have a guy who has never played quarterback before as his back-up so that would be very difficult, I don’t know how well we’d do offensively with this new player at quarterback,” said Brown.

As a result of the various injuries the Lions will have to go with some more basic run packages, and while they’ll still throw deep to try and keep the Jaguars defence honest they will be moving the ball primarily on the ground rather than through the air.

The Lions have some excellent Grade 12 experience to lead a younger roster and against the Jaguars. Brown said many of the older players will have to step up and play both ways for the Lions to try and win.

While Brown mentioned the Jaguars are in sort of a rebuilding mode, they have a returning quarterback and a very special tailback who the Lions will have to work hard to contain in order to win.

“We’ll stay in the base defence with people very aware of the tailback,and then we’ll have to make some adjustments on the field if he’s hurting us, like assigning someone to shadow him,” states Brown.

Another key to the Jaguars offence is that they’re able to run a lot of different formations and to combat this the Lions need to focus on rushing the passer.

“The key is going to be to get to him (Quarterback) and to try and put the pressure on him while containing that runningback. If we can do that I think we’ll stand a good chance at shutting down their offence.

One player the Lions will be leaning heavily on in their effort to keep pace with the Jaguars is their middle linebacker Nick Russo. Brown describes Russo as intelligent player who’s great at directing traffic. Russo will have to perform at a high if the Lions want to win.