Photo Credit: Shaw Houslander

On Thursday, September 11th, the Superior Heights Steelhawks delivered a dominant performance on their home turf, defeating the White Pines Wolverines in week two of Sault Ste. Marie Junior High School Football action. Both teams entered the contest looking for their first win of the season, but it was the Steelhawks who set the tone early and never looked back.

The Steelhawks’ offense came alive in the opening quarter, with Noah Lesyshen breaking through for a 27-yard touchdown run at 8:52 to put Superior Heights ahead 6-0. Moments later, Eli Clowater extended the lead with a 23-yard touchdown run, followed by a Lesyshen two-point conversion to make it 14-0. In the second quarter, Nick Joseph connected on a 10-yard pass to Chase Thorburn, who ran it the rest of the way for a 45-yard score, before Dominic Roy added a two-point conversion for a 22-0 advantage. Taitum Rushon punched in a 6-yard major at 4:29 of the second, with Clowater adding the convert, and then Joseph found Dominic Ryan for another score just before halftime, capped by Clowater’s kick to push the lead to 36-0 at the break.

The Wolverines showed resilience in the second half, finally breaking through when Lucien Talda-Chillman ran in a touchdown at 3:33 of the third quarter. Blake Hopkins added a second straight score for White Pines to trim the deficit, but the gap was too large to overcome as Superior Heights held strong to secure the victory.

Steelhawk coach Jared Klooster told Saultsports that “I thought we played well in all three dimensions of the game. The offence got us off to a great start and kept the pedal down in the first half. Our defence was formidable and we had a lot of guys making solid tackles. Our special teams allowed us to maintain decent field position and kept white Pines from having an ability to start in our end. We have a lot of areas we need to improve in, but it was nice to get a win today.”

Looking ahead, the Wolverines will try to bounce back on Friday, September 19th when they face the St. Mary’s Knights, while the Steelhawks prepare for a tough test against the Korah Colts on Thursday, September 18th. Both games will be played at Superior Heights Field with kickoff scheduled for 4:45 p.m.