The College Heights Cougars will have the toughest test of their football season this weekend.
The team is set to face the top-ranked Vernon Panthers in the 2A Football Provincial Semifinal.
“They are a very strong program, over the last few years, they’ve pretty much set the bar in terms of AA about as high as it can go,” said College Heights Head Coach Grant Erickson.
“They’re well coached, their Head Coach is very a good offensive mind, their line coach is Angus Reid who played 14 years for the BC Lions, and they have good athletes, they have good size upfront.”
Erickson added his team knows they’re the underdogs, but that’s how they like it.
“We’re just looking forward to going to going to the dome again and having some fun,” he said.
“We’ll line up against these guys and play as hard as we can and let the chips fall where they may.”
Erickson said it’s been a good year for the team.
“We had a couple of successful road trips in the beginning of the season,” he said.
“We went and played Mount Douglas from the Island in Abbotsford, that was week one, we shocked a few people and beat them 27-6. The next week we were on the road, we played Westside (from Kamloops) we played a close game against them, we lost to them by a field goal.”
After that, the team went undefeated in league play in the North, eventually winning the PG Bowl 14-7 over Nechako Valley Secondary.
“We managed to change some minds on the committee that seeds the teams for playoffs, and they moved us up from #7 to #5,” Erickson explained.
“That’s how we ended up playing Holy Cross, which was a pretty good matchup for us, we just went down there last weekend, I’m sure we shocked a few more people and knocked them off.”
College Heights defeated Holy Cross 22-15 to advance to the Semifinal.
Erickson said the strength of the team comes from commitment and fundamentals.
“A lot of them are doing Kodiaks in the offseason, I had a lot of them in my football class,” he said.
“They’re just a tough bunch of kids, they’re very close, tight-knit, they all play for each other, there’s no individuals out there, everybody’s working as a unit.”
College Heights will face Vernon at BC Place on Saturday at 1:30 pm.
The winner of the semifinal matchup will play against the winner of Robert Bateman and Windsor, who are playing in the other semifinal at 11:00 am on the same day.
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