The Mt. Boucherie Bears put up a fight but ultimately saw their B.C. high school football season end Saturday afternoon at Vancouver College.
After leading 7-6 at half time, the Bears couldn’t stem the tide over the the last two quarters, as the Fighting Irish roared back for a 34-21 victory in the first-round playoff matchup.
In the end, Bears’ head coach Mike Godwin said manpower told the story as Van College dressed more than twice the number of players as his squad.
“Unfortunately we ran out of gas a bit late,” said Godwin. “Vancouver College had more the 50 players dressed to our 25, and not all were 100 per cent healthy. They simply wore us down.”
Godwin had praise for his players’ effort on Saturday, including from the team’s leaders and key graduating players.
“Josiah Joseph, Spencer Humes, Keagan Hughes, Hayden Keller, and Tyler Geisler all had great performances, with some tremendous individual plays and circus catches, ” Godwin said. “It was an entertaining game to watch
The Bears, who won the Okanagan AAA Conference last season with a 6-0 record, went 2-5 this year in the newly-aligned Eastern Conference, which also featured KSS and Rutland.
Playing five of seven regular season games against strong Lower Mainland teams was a learning experience for all Kelowna teams, including the Boucherie program.
“It was a tough season playing in the toughest conference in the province, maybe the country,” Godwin said. “We were a really young team this year with only 8 Grade 12 players, and we were often going against teams that almost had as many senior players as we had on our team total. We competed each week, but we were just a few players short to really make some noise. “
JV playoffs
While all Central Okanagan senior teams are done, both the Bears and KSS Owls junior varsity squads have advanced to second round of the playoffs.
On Thursday afternoon, Mt. Boucherie will be in Coquitlam to take on the Terry Fox Ravens.
On Friday, the Owls will play host to Abbotsford in a 2 p.m. kick off on the CNC turf.
Last week, the Bears beat Lord Tweedsmuir 41-20, while the Owls knocked off New West 34-20.
