Ontario (Ottawa): St. FX win again, coach Jennings explains why

Another strong performance by St. FX have made them the undisputed favorite going into the second half of the season. Taking down arguably the toughest opponent in their tier, St. Peter’s 34-22. St. FX now holds a 3-0 record. St. Francis Xavier Head Coach, Mark Jennings, sheds some light on why his team is doing so well, and why his squad will keep getting better. “Our team is on an emotional high after defeating a very strong St. Peter team.” Said Head Coach Mark Jenning’s about the big win.
St. Peter’s was the first team on the scoresheet. The first of two touchdowns scored by QB #3 Jacob Molinski.
St. FX took the game over from there with a pair of touchdowns from playmakers #10 Dimitri Vaillancourt, who would cap off his TD hat-trickin the 4th, and Nathaniel Hamlin #23 who would score two of his own. St. FX QB/K Michael Bolzanello would go 4/5 in extra points.
#1 Tunde Adeleke was obviously game planned against and was held scoreless for the first time this season. That didn’t seem to slow down the St. FX offense.
Here’s what Coach Jennings had to say about Tunde and the way his other players stepped up;
“Tunde is the ultimate team player and will do what ever is asked of him to win. On any given day a different play-maker will step-up and make big plays for our squad. Today it was Vaillancourt who had a big day with three touchdowns. Spreading the ball to our different play-makers makes us very difficult to defend.”
The St. FX defensive squad was solid again, holding St. Peter’s to what would have been 14 points, if not for some miscommunication with Coyote punter #23 Nathaniel Hamlin. Hamlin took the snap and attempted to throw out of his own endzone. The ball would fall incomplete and the ball turned over at the ten yard line, St. Peter’s pounded the ball and managed to get in for a final score.
Here’s Coach Jennings response when asked about the play, and what made the defense so tough to play against;
“I was yelling [to Hamlin] for a kneel down, not sure what happened there. It’s good that it wasn’t something that decided the game. Those things can’t happen.” Said Jennings, adding about the defense, “This is our coaching staff’s fourth year coaching many of these players. Over the past four years we have spent the majority of our practice time developing basic defensive fundamentals. Our players have been playing in the same style of defense for the past four years and know what is expected of them. Much of our learning of systems is done through study of game film.” (tomorrow’s practice will be exclusively film study).
When asked about the confidence building in his team, and if he worried it would work against them moving forward, Coach Jennings had this to say;
“We wanted to come out and prove to ourselves, that we are capable of being the top team in the city. Over confidence should not be a problem. Two years ago in junior, St. Peter defeated us in the regular season for our only loss, however we battled back from that loss and beat them in the City Championship game. Our boys are well aware that your success can only be judged by how well you play in November. We now know that we have a championship caliber team, yet we have a long way to go before we achieve our ultimate goal of winning a City Championship.”
The second half of the season schedule is set to come out tomorrow. Coach Jennings already has an idea of what it will look like, “We will play the top two teams from the West (tier 2).”

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