In a season spent seeking positives, the Cochrane Midget Lions found one in their final regular-season game. Even the smallest of victories count for a winless football team.
So when the 0-6 Lions tied their final half of Calgary Area Midget Football Association play 7-7, it was a victory of sorts for a team scoring just three touchdowns all spring.
Leading 35-0 at the half, the Calgary Cowboys squad (3-1-2) emptied its bench, playing its second- and third-team players the entire second half of the May 7 tilt at Calgary’s Shouldice Park.
The result was an evenly-played half of football in which undermanned Lions 20-man roster was able to keep pace. This despite head coach Jud Graham sitting starters Des Catellier (quarterback), Justin Sambu (lineman) and Dan Teitz (linebacker) so they’d be fresh for Team Alberta under-18-year-old football tryouts May 8-10 in Calgary. Sambu did get in to punt the ball a couple of times, but that was it. It was up to Cochrane’s youngsters to put up a solid second-half fight against Calgary’s subs.
“It was great how the team got together. We had a rough start,” said quarterback Grady Munro, a Grade 9 thrust into the starter’s role most of the season due to Catellier’s ankle injury. “We pulled together. We started to execute better. It was great.”
Cochrane’s TD came through the air. Munro completed a couple of slant-seam passes to Marcus Hiebert on the west sideline for first downs, chewing up about 30 yards. Munro went to the other side of the field where he was unable to connect with with Reese Bobier. He went back to Hiebert on the same slant-seam play, with Hiebert leaping between three Cowboys defenders in the endzone for a 10-yard touchdown.
“Coaches were saying if the well’s not dry, just keep going,” Munro said of the three completions to Hiebert, including the TD pass. “The team played hard. We pulled together on that last drive.”
For Lions head coach Jud Graham, it was about giving his guys a chance to succeed under trying conditions. With a meagre 2015 lineup (20-25 players) of mostly Grades 9-10 players, and a starting Grade 11 QB who didn’t play all season due to injury, Graham did all he could to keep his players upbeat.
If that meant going to the well for more, so be it.
“That’s exactly what it was,” Graham said of a slant-seam pass play that connected in three of four attempts including a touchdown. “It worked last time. If it works, let’s give it another shot.”
It was Cochrane’s parting shot of the 2015 CAMFA regular season.
Calgary won 42-7. But Cochrane tied 7-7 in the second half.
Even the smallest of victories count.
