It’s said in sports that defence wins championships, and the Earl Marriott Mariners’ Grade 8 football team proved that to be the case Monday afternoon, as the school’s youngest gridiron squad ended the season in the same way they started it – with a win.
Playing under a light rain on their home field at EMS, the Mariners pitched a shutout against the visiting Pitt Meadows, winning 32-0 to claim a Grade 8 provincial football championship. The win capped an undefeated season for the South Surrey squad; the team went 7-0 in the regular season before beating the Marauders in the final.
“It was a great team win, that’s all it was,” said EMS head coach Michael Mackay-Dunn after the game.
Though the Mariners didn’t lose a game all season – and outscored opponents by more than 200 points over the course of the eight-game schedule – Monday’s scoreboard was in stark contrast to the last time the two teams met, back in late October.
In that game, EMS gave up 28 points to Pitt Meadows, and required a 36-point second-half effort to secure the win. It was the Marauders’ only loss of the season, prior to Monday.
“We had a bit of a pep talk at halftime, and a chat about responsibilities, and we just came out and it was a domino thing – one thing goes right, and (then) you’ve got 36 points,” Mackay-Dunn said, recalling the teams’ first meeting.
This time around, however, the Mariners shut their rivals down right from the start. The team forced a Pitt Meadows turnover on the game’s opening possession, and on the ensuing Mariner drive, took the lead after a five-yard touchdown run from Eisa Iqbal.
Numerous times in the first half, the Mariners’ defence stopped Pitt Meadows from driving down the field – either by stopping them on fourth down, or by forcing fumbles – and home side’s special-teams play got into the act, too, by successfully recovering three onside kicks.
“Fumble recoveries, the onside recoveries… the defensive pressure we put on them, they just couldn’t handle us,” Mackay-Dunn said.
“I don’t know that we had our ‘A’ game offensively – it’s Grade 8, so there are always some mistakes, kids going the wrong way on a play, and things like that – but defensively, we just played really well. We were focused, and just had more athletes who made plays than they did.”
Thanks in large part to continually having good field position on offence, the Mariners piled up points after Iqbal’s initial score. Quarterback Lachlan Scardina had a pair of rushing touchdowns, the first a 20-yard score and the second – which came after he intercepted a pass on defence – was a five-yarder.
In the third quarter, with Carter Fenwick under centre at quarterback, EMS scored again when Fenwick hit Sean Collins on a short hitch pass, which Collins took 30 yards downfield for six points.
“He’s such a quick little speedster, he took it in for a touchdown,” explained Mackay-Dunn.
With the team up 26-0 late in the game, Iqbal put a stamp on the victory when he took the ball and rumbled into the end zone from 15 yards out.
The Grade 8 title is the first for the Mariners’ program, which has been in operation for a dozen years. The program does have a pair of senior Tier 2 titles, winning the provincial crown in back-to-back years in 2015 and ’16. EMS did not field a senior varsity team this year, but next year is planning to have Grade 8, junior and senior squads.
And the school’s newest championship team may, in fact, owe some of their success to their older teammates – Mackay-Dunn said the Grade 8’s strategy – both offensively and defensively – draws much from the junior and senior teams’ playbook.
Typically, a Grade 8 team – with many players who are new to the sport – would have a pared down, simple game plan, but Mackay-Dunn, who coached the team he calls “the Crazy 8s” because there was no senior team this year, decided instead to challenge the group.
“We just figured, ‘Why not?’ We were lucky this year in that we had great assistant coaches, and I like to think they had a lot to do with our success – teaching and molding the kids… helping them become students of the game,” he said.
“You build the kids up, and try to increase their retention and help them learn the game. That way, when they move up to the junior and senior teams (in the future), they know the plays already.
“The players responded to it, played hard and executed the plan.”
