Mitch Calvert
Garden City’s high-scoring aerial attack was held in check for almost the first half, but came alive when it counted.
The host Fighting Gophers eliminated the Muskies from the WHSFL playoffs with a 38-5 romp in quarter-final action Friday afternoon.
The black-and-gold actually jumped on the scoreboard first thanks to a 22-yard field goal by Matt DiPiero.
Despite the three points, it was a disappointing end to a drive that had seen quarterback Dan Brunetta connect on a 27-yard completion to Jeremy Whitehead and then a 32-yard pass to Matt Mutz.
The Gophers quickly stormed back with a pair of touchdown passes to lead 14-3.
The Muskies then engineered a march of their own, aided by two long runs by fullback Mason McKay, but an interception inside the Gophers’ 10-yard line halted the promising drive.
After Fort High’s defence forced the Gophers to take a safety, closing the gap to 14-5, a long Muskie drive came up empty thanks to yet another interception inside the Gophers’ 10-yard line to close out the first half.
“Mistakes in the red zone really cost us,” head coach Vince Gouin said. “It could have been a different game. We were in the red zone four times in the first half and only managed a field goal.
“The defence played as well as they could have—they kept us in the game,” he stressed. “And really, the offence moved the ball, too, but couldn’t finish off drives.”
A field goal by the Gophers to make it 17-5 was the lone scoring in the third quarter. But then the floodgates opened—thanks largely to more Muskie turnovers.
A number of fumbles and an interception gave the Fighting Gophers good field position, and each time their passing attack—led by standout Grade 10 quarterback Ryan Ozunko (who had a WHSFL-best 1,283 passing yards during the regular season)—capitalized with long touchdowns scores to round out the scoring.
Seniors Tyler Romyn and Jimmy Whitburn returned from injury to play their final game for the black-and-gold—and Gouin said both played their hearts out.
“They battled the whole game, and they probably weren’t 100 percent, but they played very well for their last game,” he lauded.
Despite the disappointing finish to a season that had started quite promising, Gouin saw plenty of positives as it went along.
“We competed hard, and won some games, and hopefully more players will come out and see how much fun football is,” Gouin remarked.
“We had a great game plan set up against Garden City, and a few untimely errors cost us.
“We’ll be losing a large core group of players who have been very good student-athletes, but we’ll continue to build for the future,” he continued. “The old adage is ‘Rome wasn’t build in a day,’ and you just have to keep working on things and move forward.”
