Photo Credit: Freeze Frame Photos
After finishing the 2023 regular Ontario Football Summer League season undefeated, the east division first place Varsity Sault Sabercats took to the field at Superior Heights in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario to host the west division third place Chatham Cougars in a quarter final OSFL contest on Saturday, July 22nd.
At 4:04 of the opening quarter, Sabercat quarterback Matti Tucker fires a twelve yard pass to Nate Carter in the Cougars endzone to give the Sault a 6 – 0 lead. Ty Koski found the uprights for the extra point on the convert to give the Sabercats a 7 – 0 lead. With a 19 yard field goal attempt for Sabercat Ty Koski scored a field goal to bring the lead to 10 – 0 for the Sault at 6:38 of the second quarter. 18 seconds later the Sabercats added one point to their lead to give the Sabercats a 11 – 0 lead. With 2:38 remaining the opening half, the Sault’s Daniel Bumbaco runs for a 67 yard touchdown after catching a 37 yard pass from Tucker to increase the Sabercats lead to 18 – 0 with a Koski successful convert. 2:56 into the second half, quarterback Tucker finds Jaidan Trudeau with seven yard pass and a Trudeau 38 yard carry to give the hosts a 25 – 0 with Koski’s third successful convert. Finding Bumbaco with 32 yard pass from Tucker, veteran Sabercat Bumbaco rushes for his second major of the game at 6:59 of the third quarter to bring the lead to 32 – 0 with a Koski convert.
At 4:23 of the third, Cougar quarterback Owen Mallot-Bennett finds Nathan Hansor in the Sault endzone with a 33 yard pass to close the gap 26. Ronan Provenzano runs for a Sabercat 15 yard touchdown at the 3:43 mark of the third to give the Sault a 39 – 6 lead after a Koski convert. With a 22 yard pass from quarterback Mallot-Bennett, Roberts catches the Cougars second major of the game to run four yards to bring the score to 39 – 12 after an unsuccessful Chatham convert at 2:32 of the third. At 2:32 of the third, Trudeau catches a seven yard pass from Tucker to bring the Sabercats lead to 46 – 12 with a Koski convert. With 1:47 left in the OSFL quarter final, Sault quarterback fires a 16 yard pass to Ray Rumiel for the final touchdown of the game. After his seven successful convert of the game, Koski gave the Sabercats a 53 – 12 quarter final win to advance the Sault to a semi final home game.
Offensively, Sabercat quarterback Matti Tucker threw for a total of 442 yards with 20 successful pass on 27 attempts in the Sault’s commanding win. Jaidan Trudeau caught for 114 yards on six passes while Bumbaco had a total of 155 yards receiving with three catches from Tucker. Ronan Provenzano carried the ball for the Sabercats eleven times for 46 yards in the win. Defensively, Ethan Carchidi five tackles, a sack and fumble recover for the Sault along with Landen Trecartin finishing the quarter final with eight tackles. Brandon Vecchio had five tackles and an inception while Daikaden Gauthier had 3.5 tackles and two inceptions for the Sault in the 53 – 12 win over the Cougars in the quarter final win.
Sabercat coach Matt Premo told Saultsports that “Really happy with total team effort today. We played as close to a complete game as we could minus the penalties which is something we will have to clean up heading into next weeks semifinals game. I thought our defence did a great job all game and especially early in the game when our offence was sputtering a bit. Eventually we were able to make some big plays offensively and open the game up.”
“I thought Matti Tucker had one of his best games of the season and did a great job making the right reads and distributing the ball to all our receivers,” added Premo.
Visit Freeze Frame Photos by Bob Davies photo gallery of the Sabercats versus Cougars in postseason action.
The Sabercats will be back in action on Saturday, July 29th when they play host to the Warrior Jr Warriors in a 7:00 p.m kick off at Superior Heights. The Warriors advanced to the semi final after a July 22nd 42 – 10 win over Vaughan in Waterloo.
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