The Innisdale Invaders penned a fairytale finish, scoring on the game’s last play to escape with a 12-11 win on the road against the Eastview Wildcats in Simcoe County Athletic Association (SCAA) senior boys football action on Thursday.
The final white-knuckle play was a 42-yard pass-and-run touchdown from Invaders quarterback Blake Dunlop to receiver Dylan Bond that erased an 11-6 deficit.
With triple zeroes on the scoreboard, Innisdale’s point-after attempt was not required.
“Where’s my quarterback?” Bond asked moments after the winning touchdown as he was about to pose for a photo. “I can’t get a picture without him.”
The Invaders were seemingly down and out on more than one occasion. But the final sequence came after Innisdale stopped the Wildcats on third-and-short yardage to get the ball back with time ticking down. Dunlop engineered a drive that drove the ball about 30 yards downfield — running back Kevin Nneji earning most of the hard yards for the Invaders after scoring their other touchdown in the first half — to set up the last-gasp hail mary.
With time expired, Dunlop and Bond made no mistake.
“I thought maybe there was a 10 per cent chance,” Bond said as he approached the line of scrimmage on the game’s final play knowing the Invaders needed a touchdown, “but then I saw that they didn’t run their safeties back and ran all sort of blitzes and it was like I was wide open.”
Bond, like Innisdale co-head coach Sean Forrest was in an earlier conversation, was effusive in his praise of teammate Dunlop, who took a pounding all day but stuck with it right through the final drive and eventual game-winning score.
“He’s my boy,” Bond said of his quarterback.
It was Bond’s second killer move in as many days. On Wednesday, he had a hole-in-one while competing in the Georgian Bay high school golf championship at National Pines, making an ace on the 150-yard fourth hole.
“A seven-iron into the wind,” Bond recalled, describing even longer odds over grass than the one he completed across town on Thursday.
The victory was Innisdale’s first of the season and validates what has been a two-season-long slog just to roster enough bodies to field a competitive lineup.
“We have athletes, good players, just not enough of them, and they get dog-tired … When you look at the games where the scores got out of hand, it was (generally) a case of touchdowns scored (against us) late, at the end of the game, when we were tired,” said Forrest
“This is the first game where we stuck with it and (got rewarded).”
The Invaders dressed just 29 players on Thursday and only used about 25 or 26 regularly. About half of their roster is on the field for most snaps on both offence and defence. When an injury happens, it has a cascading effect. The Invaders’ offensive and defensive line is staffed with just seven players. Converted linebacker Hudson Ball was moved up and was a notable presence on both sides of the ball on Thursday.
By comparison, the Wildcats had almost 40 players, which is about the number most teams dress each game.
“We just asked the guys at the beginning of the season to make a commitment,” explained Forrest. “They did, and (the coaching staff) has stuck with them.”
Eastview is left to wonder what could have been a week after the Wildcats upset the previously unbeaten Collingwood Fighting Owls. That game saw Eastview run out to a two-touchdown lead, barely hang on at the end of regulation, and then win it in overtime for its first victory of the season.
Essentially, the Wildcats fell victim to a similar fate on Thursday that they were on the right side of a week earlier.
Thursday’s ending was not the only dramatic play that had a direct effect on the outcome.
With Eastview leading 7-0, the Invaders punted the ball late in the first half and appeared to give up a no-yards penalty on the return, but the officiating crew ruled the Wildcats returner had kicked the ball, negating any no-yards call.
The Invaders took over inside Eastview’s five-yard line with still time left on the clock. Innisdale sent in its jumbo offence and Nneji made no mistake, plunging over to make the score 7-6 after the Invaders failed on their two-point attempt.
Eastview receiver Gideon Meenye scored the game’s first touchdown on a 37-yard pass from QB Noah Larmon, who was poised and accurate all day for the Wildcats. The Larmon-Meenye duo also connected on another 57-yard scoring pass that was called back due to offensive pass interference.
Eastview defensive back Rowan Burtt had two interceptions and was a force all day long, which makes the empty Wildcat defensive backfield on the game’s final, decisive play more puzzling.
Eastview’s Rhys Davies kicked one field goal, had a point after and converted on a fake punt for a first down.
Innisdale’s Ayden Taylor also had an interception; his most significant contribution came on the final play of the first half, when he chased down an Eastview ball carrier to prevent a touchdown that would have eliminated any chance of the late-game heroics that came later.
Thursday’s result means both Eastview and Innisdale now have 1-3 records.
In another key SCAA match on Thursday, the Barrie North Vikings travelled south and defeated the Bear Creek Kodiaks 22-7 to remain undefeated at 4-0, while Bear Creek dropped to 3-1.
The SCAA has two weeks remaining in its regular-season schedule before playoffs begin later this month.
