One of the hottest teams is marching into the Ontario Varsity Football League (OVFL) postseason after enjoying a bye week with momentum on their side.
After beginning the 2015 season with a 2-2 record, the London Jr Mustangs won out the final four games of the season.
As the team prepares to host a wildcard contest at TD Waterhouse Stadium on Saturday afternoon against Mississauga Warriors, the third seeded Mustangs have peaked at the right time.
“The last four games of the regular season were great games for us,” reflected Jr Mustangs Head Coach Jordan Haylor. “We started out 2-2.”
“We had two really excruciating losses to Essex and then to Niagara so kind of a crossroad for our season was when we went to the Soo on that long road trip.”
At the tail end of the season, the Jr Mustangs were faced with a gruelling schedule. Haylor said while it was one he hasn’t faced during his tenure, he is proud of the way the team responded to the challenge, especially their regular season finale against Cambridge Lions.
“We sort of turned things around on defence and the last three games in eight days,” assessed the Jr Mustangs Head Coach. “Brampton which was sandwiched between Cambridge and Etobicoke and it was a very unique challenge for our football team.”
“I told our team after the Cambridge game that I felt that it was a very good character win for us. Cambridge is a Top 10 team in the OVFL. They’re good every year and to go down there on the road and pick up the win, particularly the way we did it I thought really spoke to the character we have on our football team. We like the way we responded after the first four games of our season and we hope to carry that momentum into the playoffs.”
However, the playoffs are a new season. While the Mustangs are riding on a momentum high, they know that things will get tougher with each postseason game they are afforded the chance to compete in this summer.
“There’s no easy games in our conference,” explained Haylor. “If you look at the six teams in the playoffs, we go in as the number three seed and we’re playing the number six seed and really six through one in our conference are very tough so there’s no easy games for anyone going forward.”
Already, the team will be facing a huge task in the Wildcard round as they are facing the Warriors, who have been equally hot as of late. These two teams have already faced each other in Week 1 of the OVFL season. While the Jr Mustangs pulled out a 40-29 win, both teams have played a lot of football and have grown in the process.
“I think it’s going to be a great game,” commented Haylor. “Mississauga is going to be a great test for our football team.”
“We played them Week 1 and it was a good game. They have improved a lot. I put on the film of them playing Niagara and they look like they are a very confident football team and they seem to be peaking at the right time too so it’s going to be an outstanding football game.”
For the Jr. Mustangs to be successful on Saturday, the team will need to find an answer for Warriors quarterback Kevin John. Haylor concedes it will not be an easy task.
“Kevin John is a good quarterback as there is I think in Ontario,” said the Jr. Mustangs Head Coach. “He’s the guy that’s going to keep our coaching staff up late at night trying to figure out a way to contain him.”
“I don’t think you are going to find a way to stop a kid like that. He’s too talented, too multidimensional. We got to do a better job than we did in Week 1 limiting Kevin John. If we can kind of limit him just a little bit then it will certainly help our chances to win. We’re going to try to limit him which is a difficult task for our defence.”
Another challenge for the Jr. Mustangs will be dealing with #CFC100 aggressive, tenacious linebacker Jack Cassar.
“He’s outstanding,” added Haylor. “He’s the middle linebacker for them and he does a great job.”
“He’s obviously the leader of that defence. You put the film on and you see him make plays kind of sideline to sideline. He can run and he’s just a really physical football player. He’s going to present a lot of challenges for our offence. How do we deal with it? I’m not sure. Its’ going to be a great matchup. We have a great offensive line and he’s a great linebacker so it should make for a great Saturday afternoon that’s for sure.”
Going into this playoff contest, the Jr Mustangs will continue to do the things that have worked so far on offence. However, the team will have to make a couple of different adjustments to counter a tough Warriors defence.
It helps that a couple of key players have returned back to the lineup. Defensive back Justin Georgopolous and tailback Brentyne AndersonBrown rejoin the team after guiding Team Ontario to a silver medal at the 2015 Football Canada Cup in Quebec.
AndersonBrown’s return will help take off some of the workload off of OVFL Rushing King Cole Kussmann. So far this season, Kussmann has amassed 1621 rushing yards on 185 carries and 19 touchdowns.
With #CFC100 Tristan Arndt leading the game execution and a key offensive threat coming back from injury, the Jr Mustangs will use that to their advantage on Saturday afternoon.
“We feel like the strength of our team is our offensive line and our running backs and we want to run the football,” described Haylor of the offence. “But having said that, Mississauga, they’re well-coached and they’re probably not going to just line-up base defence and let us power run at them all day.”
“We are going to have to throw the football away and we understand that and we’ve game planned for that this week. Having Tristan, he’s a #CFC100 kid as well and that really helps. We been a little bit banged up at receiver since kind of the middle of the regular season but we have one of our key players back this week Noah Olynyk who is a Laurier recruit, which will help us a lot. We do want to run the football but we realize we have to go there to win too. If we can cut a run and keep them off with our play run passes then that’s going to give us a better chance to win the football game.”
Since the beginning of the season, the Jr. Mustangs Achilles Heel has been their defence. However, as the team progressed, so too did their play. In their regular season finale against the Lions, the Jr. Mustangs offence uncharacteristically off during parts of the game. The defensive unit stepped up and compensated for the offence’s lack of output and put forth of the best efforts of the season, when they needed to the most.
“I thought the Cambridge game, they played really well,” recalled Haylor. “After the game, some of our fans were kind of like “Hey, what’s going on with our offence, you guys only scored 31 points.”
“I guess that is kind of the standard we’ve held to on offence. If we score only 31 points against a good football team, then it’s an off game. I told Austin Scarpelli our Defensive Coordinator that really our defence really did win us that football game. We’ve been kind of talking about all year, what’s going to happen this week if we don’t go out and score 40, is the defence going to step up? That’s kind of what happened. We scored 31 which was an ok game for us and our defence did a really great job keeping us in the football game, particularly in the second and third quarter. Our offence was really struggling quite a bit and our defence really stepped up and really kept Cambridge off the board for those couple of quarters to really give us a chance to win.”
Overall, the defence’s confidence increased as the season went on and Haylor is impressed with the way the unit has responded and bought into the system. He hopes that the unit will once again put forth one of the best performances of the season while finding a way to stop John and the Warriors offence.
“I think what we’re feeling is really good about our defence as we have all season,” expressed the Jr Mustangs Head Coach. “They’ve really kind of bought into what the defensive coaches have been talking the last few weeks and they’re playing really well.”
“At the same time, realizing going up against Kevin John and that passing option is a really huge challenge for us. Our attitude is we’re going to take it. We know he’s going to make plays. We’re not going to hold him to 150 yards passing, we may not limit him to 300 yards passing he’s that good of a player. He’s going to make plays and we understand that. I think the key for us is that we have to make a few stops. If we can bring some pressure and maybe get him off our throwing spot a little bit and make life a little bit more difficult for him.”
Ultimately, the Jr Mustangs need everything to come together in the postseason and it starts with getting the victory on Saturday afternoon at home against the Warriors.
“The attitude of our team the last few weeks has been resiliency,” commented Haylor. “On offence, we really need to put up points against Mississauga because we know they are going to score.”
“I think you will see our defence rise to the challenge and fight no matter what happens. If our offence plays well again, it will be a great football game.”
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