With less than a minute to play, the Sudbury Secondary School North Stars girls flag football team appeared set to celebrate victory, just a day after being held off the scoresheet completely in their season opening encounter.
But Kaiden MacLean saw a hole and burst through it, finishing her gallop some 73 yards later, only after dealing a heartbreaking blow to the SSS crew, lifting the St. Benedict Bears to a 14-8 triumph in Division "B" play last week.
"Our quarterback (Gracey Mallette) decided what side we are to going to run it to, depending on what side was open," said MacLean, after the contest. "We went to the open side and honestly, I didn't think I was going to get there at first, but then I got through some people and it was good."
A 15-year-old Grade 10 student who enjoys being on the offensive side of the ledger, MacLean the best teams have a solid mix of offensive and defensive players.
"If you really like to grab the flags and you have a good eye on where the play is going to go, then you should go defense," she suggested. "It's not all about getting the points. Even on defense, you can still get the ball and run it."
To wit, a pair of lightning-quick defensive pursuit players in the Bears lineup clearly caught her eye.
"Abby Redmond and Ava Blum have really good speed and are really focused on the play," said MacLean. "They just have a second sense, I guess you could say."
Breana Martini recorded the remaining St. Benedict major, with Emily Levesque nailing a pair of conversion attempts for the winners, while Taylor Doyle countered with a touchdown of her own. Trina Baylosis had put the Stars in position to win, nabbing a flag in the end zone for a key second half safety touch.
Week one action was highlighted by some very impressive individual performances, while some of the league stalwarts also served notice that they are back to contend again in 2019.
The Division "A" ranks look to be as wide open as ever, with the Marymount Regals, Confederation Chargers, Lasalle Lancers and St Benedict Bears all hitting the win column to start the season.
While the Regals stopped the Lockerby Vikings 28-0 and the Bears blanked the Lo-Ellen Park Knights 15-0, Ellie Laberge was a one-woman wrecking crew for Confed, accounting for all of her team's points in a 15-0 whitewashing of the Collège Notre-Dame Alouettes.
A member of the Esso Cup silver medal winning Sudbury Lady Wolves' team last spring, and back with the group to add some experience with the blue-line corps, Laberge demonstated her athletic versatility by scoring a pair of touchdowns, making good on the point after on each, and closing things off with a single in the win.
The most wide open affair in this grouping came late Tuesday evening as Lasalle slipped past the St. Charles College Cardinals 25-20, as the Lancers look to avenge their loss in the 2018 championship final, with the SDSSAA league opting to make the move from 12 v 12 to a 7 v 7 game last fall.
The schedule was even busier in the "B" bracket, as all ten teams managed to get their first two games of the new campaign under their belts. The Confederation Chargers, Lively Hawks and Horizon Aigles all share top spot with two victories each, with Kaiden MacLean and her Bears hot on their heels with a record of 1-0-1.
The Chargers followed up a 26-0 win over Sudbury Secondary with a 36-6 triumph over the Macdonald-Cartier Panthères, as speedster Chelsea Leduc finished with no less than six touchdowns over the course of two games, and Zoe Roper and Kailey Beggs also chipped in with two each.
Led by a two-TD performance from Abby Perreault and three interceptions from their defence, the Horizon Aigles defeated the Espanola Spartans 20-0 before besting the CND Alouettes 20-12 some 24 hours later.
Lively has a counter of their own to Chelsea Leduc as Allie Baxter reached the end zone three times and promptly split the uprights with three straight PATs in a 21-7 win over the Bishop Carter Gators, with the Hawks earning a second victory on their home school grounds on Thursday, grounding the Chelmsford Flyers 27-0.
Remaining games in the division included a 0-0 tie between St. Benedict and Chelmsford, a 13-6 win for ESMC over CND, and a 19-7 Bishop Carter triumph over Espanola, as the Gators played back to back games on Wednesday evening.
