All three Burlington Stampeder rep level summer football teams won against their Hamilton-Wentworth Panther rivals this past week-end. These games were expected to be a difficult matchup but only the bantam game was close.

Varsity defence perfect after two games

The Varsity Stampeders defence has not yet allowed a score this season. They won 44-0 in what was touted as the game of the week against the Panthers in a match that was marred with penalties on every other play. The Stampeders defence kept the pressure on the Panther offence with quarterback sacks, knock downs, safeties and interceptions which removed the momentum the squad was able to muster.

The defence read the plays and made the tackles to minimize the Hamilton-Wentworth gains and the first downs. Karl Prud’homme contributed two sacks and Jack Gatza, Nigel Henry, Austin Reusch added interceptions.

The Stamps were up 14-0 at the end of the first quarter with a pass from quarterback Will Finch to Wes Livermore and a rushing td for Finch. The quarterback, named offensive player of the Ontario Football Conference (OFC) this week, connected with Livermore, Doug Corby and Josh Vandeweerd for majors in the second quarter. Livermore was perfect on the converts, contributing on the punt return too. With two safeties, the score at the break was 37-0. Muhammed Tutic rushed for another major in the second half.

The Varsity team comes back home to host the 1-1 Chatham Cougars at 5pm on Sunday June 12 at Notre Dame High School.

JV Stamps outscore Hamilton-Wentworth Panthers

The Panthers started the game strong and scored first, but could not contain the JV Stampeder offence, who answered with three majors in the first quarter, three more in the second and one last major in the third. The final score was 51-15.

Two touchdowns each were from Connor Cooke on passes from quarterback Troy Downton and rushing from Jonathan Howard. Michael Parent and Downton scrambled for scores, but Lucas Merlin ran the furthest, with a 95 yard punt return for a TD. Adam McIntosh was perfect for seven kicking conversions.

Howard ran for 113 and Parent for 84 while Downton found Cooke four times for 63 yards passing.

The impressive scoring was made possible by a dominating defence. Addison Olah, Kyle Hallet and Carter Gladman each had a quarterback sacks. Olah led the defence with eight tackles, Chandler Bradshaw and Aaron Vandeweerd contributed three each. Josh Charnicovsky added an interception to his two tackles.

“When you control both sides of the line of scrimmage it makes coaching decisions a lot easier.” said head coach Andy van Oosterhout. “ Defensively our front four of Hallett, Ziebart, Thorne and Gladman wreaked havoc with their QB and offensively Price, Howlett, Furlan, Thun, Mitchell,Curren,Morin all did an outstanding jobs in either pass protection or run blocking.”
“ We are only as good as our last game. We look forward to the challenge of playing Chatham this week.” said van Oosterhout.

The JV squad faces the 0-2 Chatham Cougars Sunday, June 12 at Notre Dame secondary school.

Bantams win battle of the defence

A hard-fought defensive battle between the Burlington Bantam Stampeders and the Hamilton Wentworth Panthers ended on Sunday with the Stampeders edging the Panthers by a final score of nine to eight.

The strong defence was all over the field with a multitude of players tackling on each play. Jack Miller led with five tackles, followed by Aaron Gustafson, Hamish Neilson and Tyler Roy with four each. The Stampeders defence scored first with Aaron Gustafson tackling Hamilton-Wentworth half back Daniel Skuse for a safety at 11:30 of the second quarter. The defence scored Burlington’s touchdown when Curtis Plante forced the Panthers to fumble and Josh Chedore recovered the ball for four-yard touchdown run. Matthew Walker followed up with the extra point. The Panthers score was three minutes into the third quarter on 30 yard pass from to Sam Berube, and the two point convert by Tyson Middlemost.

The offence tallied 303 rushing years, one interception and one fumble. Dominic Mandalfino and Andrew Pipilas contributed 88 and 87 rushing yards respectively.

“The boys had a very good game today, defence was strong again and the offence moved the ball well.” said bantam head coach Cliff Bruce.

Next week the Stampeders (2-0 -1) face the Kitchener-Waterloo’s Twin Cities Predators (1-0-2) at Notre Dame, kick off is at noon.

PHOTO: Cheryl Luckie Photography