CJFL: Braves fall to first place Hamilton

“We knew we would be facing a different team than we did in August,” said Braves head coach Mike Samples. “We expected to play better even though we didn’t have enough players at practice for good preparation. We had some great effort at times but too many mistakes to challenge Hamilton.”

The game was more competitive than the score would indicate. The first touchdown was at the end of the first quarter on an 11-yard pass to Cory Reposo and the Braves blocked the convert. The second quarter was evenly matched until Ryan Kotar scrambled from the red zone for a major with just under five minutes left. The two point convert attempt was incomplete. With under a minute to the break, the Braves picot, Mak Blewett was orchestrating a scoring drive with a 24 yard completion to Brody Essery and another long completion to Tyler Bistrovich. The yardage lost in a fumbled snap was too much to overcome when the third-down pass was incomplete. The score was 0-12 at halftime.

Both defences ramped up the effort in the second half. Ian Marouf had two sacks in the third and another in the fourth. Jonathon Langma had a sack in the third period as well, to hold the Hurricanes scoreless. Hamilton’s Jordan Powell sacked Blewett in the third quarter. The Braves were moving the ball at the beginning of the fourth, with two completions to Connor Anderson and a run from Alex McFarlane when Justin Vanderlaan picked off a pass and ran for 60 yards for a touchdown. It broke the game open with the Chris Bartolomeo convert, the score was 0-19.

The Braves kept pressing even after a second Kotar touchdown and they were down by 26 but a Connor Hitchcock end zone interception with four minutes remaining, put the game out of reach. The Hurricane put the score to 33 after another pick, this one by Ryan Dalley with two minutes remaining.

The Braves fought back with a 35-yard completion to Tashawn Clarkson-Officer, overcoming a sack by Steve Wilkieson with completions to Matt Kyle, two to Jason Diston and another to Cameron Freelen to put Blewett in scoring position with a scramble for a score. Dustin DeGeorgis was good for the point after and the Braves were on the board with less than ten seconds on the clock.

Nigel Henry contributed six tackles to the defensive effort, Steve Connery and Rob Dowling added four each. Running back Anderson had five carries for 58 yards and four catches for another 51. Essery had 53 yards on three receptions, Diston had two catches for 35 yards, Freelen two for ten yards. Alex McFarlane had six yards in two carries and a 21-yard reception. Blewett passed for 210 ten yards in 16 of 36 completions.

The Braves will be on the 401 to Ottawa to face the fifth-place Ottawa Sooners next Saturday (September 29) at 4pm. Ottawa will be looking for a win in hopes of securing a play off spot.