The end of the line came early this season for the defending provincial Tier 3 high school football champions. Despite leading the Cardston Cougars 28-15 in the fourth quarter, the Cochrane High School Cobras just couldn’t make it stick, dropping a 35-28 provincial Tier 3 quarterfinal decision Nov. 9 to Cardston.
“It happens,” said Cobras senior running back/defensive back Justin Mount, who played his last game as a Cobra under the lights at Calgary’s Shouldice Park, Encana field. “It was a good game, a great game. We played hard.”
Cardston brought something no other team, outside September exhibition play in San Diego, the Cobras had faced this season: stiff competition.
“If we could have a real season, I think it would make a huge difference,” Mount speculated. The Cobras went 5-0 in Rocky View Sports Association regular-season play this year, out-scoring opponents 231-7. “Rocky View, we’re just not that big. That’s something we’re always going to have to deal with.”
Two touchdowns from Kyle Moortgat and one from Nik Noseworthy paced the Cobras to at 21-15 lead at the half, with Moortgat hauling in a third-quarter TD pass from quarterback Cody Stevens. Cochrane looked well on the way to a provincial semifinal berth. But the Cougars sharpened up, attacking Cochrane with a powerful running game on the legs of 6-foot-1, 210-pound running back Spencer Miller.
Cardston kept pounding away in the fourth, and making key plays on defence until Cochrane’s season ended on a third-down play late in the game that failed to net a first down.
“We’re disappointed, obviously,” Cobras co-head coach and offensive coordinator Rob McNab said.
McNab echoed Mount’s sentiment that the Cobras just hadn’t faced a team as complete as Cardston this season.
“We’ve seen a couple of other good ones when we did some scrimmages and things, but we didn’t see a team that was similar to us,” McNab observed. And it won’t come any easier to the Cobras next year, who lose half their team (20 players) to graduation. Kelton Beach, Paul Poon, Bailey Gordon, Logan Smith, Mount, Noseworthy, Milton Singeris, Scott McMillan, Coleton Harris, Matt Pipa, Graydon Verner, Garrett Wilton, Carson Gogol, Gianni Silvestri, Mike Quillian, Mike Bannon, Dale Cummings, Moortgat, Deagle and Wyatt McLeod have all played their last game for CHS.
