The St. Thomas More Knights got the win, but the Notre Dame Jugglers got the respect in the season opening high school football game between the two independent rivals.
STM was lucky to come away with a 10-7 win over the Jugglers following a last-second, 28-yard, gamewinning field goal from kicker Alex Golding.
"I tried to stay as calm as I could. What a relief," said Golding after slotting the winning threepointer with just 6.5 seconds remaining in the game.
With the matchup deadlocked at 7-7 with less than a minute left in the fourth quarter, Justin Siglos, who returned the opening thirdquarter kickoff 85 yards for STM's only touchdown of the game, got the Knights close to midfield with a 10yard reception.
A fortuitous defensive holding call on an ensuing pass attempt to Giovanni Trasolini gave the Knights a first down on the Jugglers' 15-yard line with time still on the clock.
Golding, who had a hand in two quarterback sacks for STM on defence, then made the field goal.
"Our offence wasn't clicking, but our defence held us in," said the 5-11 senior. "This is probably our worst effort. We have to get better."
In a game that saw precious little in the way of offence from both teams, particularly the No. 5-ranked Knights, big plays in the second half appeared to have both teams ready to send home with a draw.
Burnaby quarterback Joseph Gabriele engineered Notre Dame's 75-yard comeback drive that tied the game in the final minute of play.
Beginning on Notre Dame's own 27-yard line, Gabriele got a big play from Anthony Quatrano, who caught a short pass in the Jugglers' end and pitched off to Mike Aranzaso, who took the ball close to midfield.
Two plays later, Gabriele hit Matt Johnson with a 38yard pass that set up the Jugglers in the STM red zone for the first time in the game.
Faced with a fourth-andnine situation and 1: 06 on the clock, Gabriele lofted a pass into the end zone, which Lerone Robinson got underneath and hauled in for a score.
Matthew Norum booted the convert to tie the game.
Gabriele finished with nine completions for 127 yards, a touchdown and one interception. Quatrano had five receptions and 56 yards for the blue and white.
" We ' r e young, we're going to learn from this. It's stepping stones," said Gabriele after the game. "We wanted to gain respect this week. It was all about respect, and we played them tough. I'm proud of everyone."
Notre Dame put up more than 200 yards of total offence, to less than 100 by the Knights, which included a dismal day of four-for-17 passing by last season's Grade 11 player of the year Mikey Carney.
"It's something that can be fixed. We have to go hard at practice next week. We have the (Vancouver College) Irish, and that's our homecoming game," Golding said.
STM head coach Bernie Kully was adamant the Knights had hard work ahead at practice this week.
"We just weren't in synch for whatever reason," he said.
The Knights will host the No. 1 Fighting Irish at STM field on Saturday. Game time is scheduled for 1: 30 p.m.
In other AAA matchups, New Westminster successfully defended the Kushnir Boot with a 16-13 win over South Delta on Friday. Vancouver College defeated Renton, Washington 45-19 last Thursday.
