The Sports Corner

Expect to hear Mouat Hawks QB Cam Bedore’s name in the future

There were many storylines that came out of Saturday’s B.C. high school football Triple A championship, all of which were compelling in their own right.

But what about the performance of W.J. Mouat Hawks quarterback Cam Bedore? There’s been plenty of talk, and rightfully so, about the work of Lemar Durant and Nehemie Kankolongo from 2009 champion Centennial Centaurs and how successful they were at running the ball through one of the stingiest defences in the province.

Durant’s counterpart, Bedore, had himself quite a game too and served notice to the high school football pundits that his name might be one that is brought up more often than not in the future.

The ’09 Subway Bowl was really the coming out party for the Grade 11 pivot, who threw nine completions in 14 attempts for 213 yards and three touchdowns.

In high school football, those numbers are impressive on their own because the passing game isn’t fully developed and teams tend to focus on the running game because it’s the safest option.

But Bedore added a different element to the Hawks offence because he could throw with velocity, accuracy, on the run and in the pocket and he showed that against the Centaurs by hitting John Watson, Drew Chung and Desmond Bassi for touchdown passes that brought his team to within a field goal of tying the game in the fourth quarter.

Add to that the fact it was a championship game against a very strong opponent, it was an outdoor game and it temperatures were hovering around freezing with strong wind gusts for which Bedore threw two touchdowns into and his performance is all the more impressive.

Those are elements that are nothing to sneeze at because they can wreak havoc with the professional QBs in both the CFL and NFL.

He also scored a rushing touchdown where he had to put his head down to reach the end zone, earning him points for toughness to go along with skill and on-field vision.

And ask Durant how hard Bedore was to bring down. Bedore took off on a two-point convert late in the fourth quarter and looked to have been wrapped up by his counterpart, but managed to break free of the tackle and rumbled into the end zone to again close the gap which was once 26-7 in the third quarter.

The toughness of Durant had been proven as a quarterback, a receiver before pivot Luke Williams went down to injury in the season opener to Mouat, and as a safety.

There was no doubt coming into the game that Bedore was under the microscope as to how he would perform under that kind of pressure, of which he only got a little taste for last year when the Junior Varsity Hawks won the J.V. Triple A title.

But this was under way different circumstances and there was a lot more pressure than what he faced last year as a Grade 10.

The Hawks didn’t win the ’09 Subway Bowl, but Bedore showed everyone that he has what it takes to be a special player and that we might be hearing his names on bigger stages in the years to come.