The Sports Corner

Terry Fox relinquishes crown to New Westminster

New Westminster 23 - Terry Fox 12 - Nov. 20, 2009.

As the Terry Fox Ravens’ reign of dominance came to an end, another began. 

The New Westminster Hyacks have more impressive wins this year than anyone else in the province. They have now beaten Kelowna, Notre Dame, Centennial, W.J. Mouat and now Terry Fox. All five of those teams made the playoffs, two of them won their conference championship.

Yet with all those wins under their belt, this was the type of slobber-knocker game that they hadn’t won yet because most of their wins came in shootouts.

The weather was less than agreeable, the heavens had a good cry in the previous game, soaking the field, and it had a horrible impact on the first half of this quarter-final. New Westminster lost two fumbles and muffed a punt that was recovered by Terry Fox, reminiscent of the Hyacks’ game against Vancouver College earlier this year when they turned the ball over eight times.

“We talked about it at halftime that if we protected the ball those plays would come,” said New Westminster’s head coach Farhan Lalji.

But the Ravens had turnover problems of their own, fumbling four times, but only one resulted in a change of possession. And that wasn’t their only ball control issue, the Ravens turned the ball over on downs three times.

Ultimately, the Terry Fox offence couldn’t make enough plays to win the game. Grade 11 quarterback Cameron Canales made plays because of his mobility but the New Westminster defence was too strong up front.

“Our guys tackled, our defensive line controlled the game,” said Lalji. “Casey (Chin) and Vivie (Bojilov) are the two best linebackers in the province bar none. To have them on our team at the same time we’re totally blessed. They were all over the field.”

Midway through the fourth quarter, down by nine, the Ravens had a chance to cut the lead to six with a field goal from the 12-yard line. Instead they chose to go for it on fourth and one and failed.

“We went for all the mustard on the fourth-and-one gamble and that would have made it tighter,” said Terry Fox co-head coach Tom Kudaba. “It’s a game of inches, I’m very proud of our boys.”

The next play was a 66-yard run for the Hyacks and Bojilov put the game away with a 19-yard touchdown run with just over four minutes remaining.

New Westminster will move on to face the winner of the Centennial-Lord Tweedsmuir game in the semifinals.