Mixed weekend for Raiders football
It was a busy weekend for Kevin Wyeth, president of the Chateauguay Minor Football Association.
Along with being the president of the association, he is also head coach of two Raiders teams that were in playoff action this last weekend: one at the Peewee level, and one at the Bantam level.
While both teams had playoff games, the results could not have been more different.
In a previous interview with The Eastern Door, Wyeth compared his Peewee team to David, with their President’s Cup final opponents the St. Leonard Cougars playing the role of Goliath.
In this case, Goliath was the victor, with St. Leonard taking home the President’s Cup victory in a 40-0 win.
“It was the wrong time to have a bad game,” said Wyeth. “The refs were horrible, the kids didn’t play up to their abilities, just a bad game all around.”
Despite the one-sided loss, Wyeth can’t say his team had a bad year, going 7-1 during the regular season and managing to reach the President’s Cup finals.
“It was a great season overall,” said Wyeth.
Local player Kirk Horne was an important part of the Peewee team this season, playing centre on the offensive line.
Wyeth has called Horne an “amazing athlete,” and said he had been great at centre for the Raiders for two years now.
Meanwhile, the Bantam Raiders will be playing their finals game this Saturday against the St. Lazare Mustangs, after beating the Sun Youth Hornets 27-21 in their President’s Cup semifinals.
“It was an exciting game,” said Wyeth.
Despite what Wyeth described as a slow start to the offense, the Raiders still jumped out to a 21-7 lead early in the game.
Sun Youth started putting points on the board after that, but the Raiders’ defense stood pat, holding the lead and helping Chateauguay clinch a finals berth.
“The team just all played together and made the win happen,” said Wyeth. “The boys kept their composure and fought a hard game.”
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Aidan Davies, a linebacker from Kahnawake on the Bantam Raiders, was a key part of the defensive stand according to Wyeth.
“He was a big part of our defense, making a bunch of tackles,” said Wyeth. Davies also occasionally plays on the other side of the ball as an alternate running back according to the Raiders’ head coach.
Chateauguay will play against the St. Lazare Mustangs in St. Leonard on Saturday at 10 a.m. to determine the Quebec Bantam Football League President’s Cup champion.
On the complete opposite end of the scoring spectrum, the Mosquito Chateauguay Raiders Black, which had no local players, completely dominated their Montreal Regional Football League Cup championship game, defeating the Lakeshore Cougars 51-0 on Saturday, November 2 in St. Leonard.
