A crosstown football rivalry has begun.
How can the Samuel Robertson Technical Titans feel anything but a yearning for revenge after suffering a 42-3 hazing at the hands of an established Pitt Meadows Marauders football squad.
Friday’s game at Pitt secondary was the first time there has been a clash between two local senior football teams. Predictably, the more experienced program easily handled the rookies, before a large crowd of parents, high school kids, alumni and football fans.
Despite the score, the Titans weren’t hanging their heads. Team captain and centre Donny McNee loved the atmosphere.
“It’s awesome. I’ve been waiting for this since I started playing football,” he said. “Even being beaten, it’s great to be out there.”
“We’re going to come together as a team.”
After an injury to their starting quarterback Tim Nica, the Titans converted their star running back Tyrel Ogloff to the pivot position. He did an outstanding job, considering it has been a few seasons since he played the position, but the Titans lost a key weapon in the backfield.
“We’ve got to pull together and become more of a team, and win the games to come,” said Ogloff.
He has of course faced the Marauders as a junior football player, but the first senior clash with the crosstown rival was a game to mark on the calendar.
“It’s one of my favourite games during the season,” said Ogloff. “We were all really pumped up for it.”
The Titans came out and scored a field goal on their first possession, but Pitt answered with a touchdown on their first turn, and never trailed again.
For SRT, the biggest plays were from QB Ogloff to sure-handed six-foot-six receiver Liam Evanow.
The Marauders were loaded with weapons. In the ground attack, Brandon Stewart had 142 rushing yards and a touchdown, Dalton Hebblethwaite had 89 yards and score, and Scott Cawallader ran for 51 yards.
Callum Williamson was part of a defensive line that manhandled the smaller SRT line. He said Pitt is just hitting their stride. They lost to the Mission Roadrunners, but that is a team which is one of the top ranked on the double A circuit.
“We have a chance of winning every game on the rest of our schedule,” he said.
Williamson praised the work of the entire defensive line in the game, and gave props to quarterback Jake Schuster, who threw four touchdowns, and had 219 passing yards after completing eight of 11 attempts.
He spread the ball around, throwing touchdown passes to Matt Cameron, Ryan Beaubien, Justin Tweddie and Manny Gill. Cameron had the most receiving yards, with 82, while Beaubien had 64 and Tweddie 63.
On defence, Cole White led the way with five tackles and a quarterback sack, and big Williamson had two tackles and a sack. Beaubien and Mack Dhami both had six tackles.
Williamson has been playing at Pitt for five seasons, and remembers when their fledgling teams were first venturing out onto the gridiron, and got the sort of hard lessons that Pitt gave SRT on Friday.
“We got beat up pretty bad too,” he recalled.