While they're in different brackets, the Cochrane Cobras and Bow Valley Bobcats finished up their final regular season games of the season and are now preparing for the Rocky View Sports Association (RVSA) playoffs that will begin on Oct. 18, with both Cochrane teams playing the following day.
BOW VALLEY BOBCATS
The Bobcats took on the Springbank Phoenix on Oct. 10 in their second home game of the season. While the Bobcats managed to put up their highest point total of the season, a sign that the young team in continually getting better, the home side lost to the 4-2 Phoenix by a score of 42-13. With this being a building year for Bow Valley, they'll look for their first win of the season in the Division B quarter-final when they take on the 2-4 George McDougall Mustangs on Oct. 19 in Airdrie.
COCHRANE COBRAS
The Cobras spent the last week doing some team bonding in San Fransisco where they took on the King's Academy Knights on Oct. 5. Cochrane High lost 42-19 to the talented Knights squad. The Cobras tried their hand at playing American rules, with the four downs instead of three like they're accustomed to. The team then took in the Stanford Cardinal and Washington Huskies National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as well as a trip to Alcatraz.
"The trip was great. We experienced a lot of cool things and some great football games," Cobras quarterback Xavier Vaillancourt said of the bye week trip. "We all stayed in rooms of four or five and for sure ended up connecting as a team more. It was great for us to play (against King's Academy) at such a high speed. I think if we played as fast and as well as we did down in the States we would've had a better chance against Raymond in our previous exhibition game."
The Cobras returned home just in time to face the Bert Church Chargers in a battle of the undefeated on Oct.11 in Airdrie. Coming into the game, the five-time defending provincial champion Cobras had scored 211 points while only allowing 14. In contrast, Bert Church posted similar numbers by outscoring their opponents 225-28.
It was a gritty, hard-fought contest in which the Cobras only led by a 6-0 margin at half time, due to a fumble recovery by the Cobras defence and a one-year touchdown plunge by Vaillancourt. Bert Church got on the board with a field goal to cut the lead to 6-3 with just over a minute remaining in the third quarter, but Vaillancourt had another rushing touchdown and Derek Reid put the finishing touches on the game with the final score ending as 21-3 in the Cobras favour.
The Cochrane High defence was stout throughout the entirety of the game, as they have been all season. With the field goal that the Chargers scored, the Cobras defence has only allowed an amazing 17 points through six regular season games, a stat that averages out to just over two points per game. Vaillancourt said the defence was the reason why the Cobras were victorious in the final regular season game of the season.
"Our defence won us that game," Vaillancourt said. "On offence we are missing a ton of receivers so we had to go to the running game. It was good to see that we could move the ball that way."
"We have great athletes all over the field and our coaches have great schemes and systems. It's great to have such a solid team on all parts of the game."
The Cobras will now shift their focus to the RVSA Division A playoffs where they'll play the fourth-ranked W.H. Croxford Cavaliers, a team the Cobras beat 47-7 on Sept. 7. The game will take place in Cochrane due to the Cobras being the higher seed.
"We need to get back to our game and to what we do best," Vaillancourt said when asked what it would take to beat the Cavaliers a second time. "They are a big, physical team and we are going to have to match that in order to win. The team is fired up and I think we all have to elevate our game to make another run to the finals."
Kick off for both the Cobras and Bobcats games are scheduled to go at 1 p.m.
