The catch of the day to complete an amazing comeback wasn't the play the head coach of the St. Albert High Skyhawks called in Tuesday's playoff thriller in metro Edmonton high school football.
On third down and a foot, with the Archbishop Jordan Scots clinging to a three-point lead, Skyhawks' quarterback Keith Zyla launched a deep pass towards Brendan Thera-Plamondon streaking down the right hash marks. The lightning-fast Grade 11 slotback spun away from coverage and made a leaping two-handed grab behind the five-yard line before flipping over the goal line for the game-winning touchdown. The point-after attempt by Dantan Tait-Vanderheide was good.
The 36-yard TD strike with 72 seconds left to play was the exclamation mark in the stunning 32-28 victory at Riel Park.
"I didn't expect that. I called the sneak and they decided to go another way. It was definitely a heck of a catch," said a relieved-looking Skyhawks coach Sam Johnson. "They made it work and I'm proud of them. It was a couple of our leaders stepping up and being leaders, believing in what they can do and believing in each other."
Zyla switched things around in the huddle after hooking up with Nathan Pytel for a critical 12-yard gain on second and 13.
"Keith goes, 'Thera, I've got a good play that's not the play [Johnson] called. It's just between me and you, all right?' I said OK, so I run the route and he throws it up," said an excited Thera-Plamondon. "I'm looking at the ball and I didn't think I was going to catch it because their DB was in front of me. I just jumped and caught it and then the rest is all adrenaline jumping into the end zone."
Moments earlier Thera-Plamondon hauled in the touchdown pass that gave the Skyhawks life, and on the ensuring kickoff the 16-year-old tracked down the onside kick at the Scots' 45. Three plays later the man of the match scored the biggest TD of his young career.
"It was the most amazing feeling in my life. I'm going to remember it when I'm old and grey," he said of his second TD of the game.
His first scoring play was a reception in the end zone on first and goal from the 10 with 1:54 remaining to pull the Skyhawks to within three of the Scots at 28-25. The convert by Tait-Vanderheide was unsuccessful.
The TD drive started at the Scots' 35 after the Sherwood Park team went two-and-out and punted after recovering a St. Albert fumble at its two-yard line. The fumble came one play after a 43-yard bootleg by Zyla put the Skyhawks' first and goal at the five.
"It shows the character of our young men to bounce back like that," Johnson said.
Sluggish start
In the first quarter the Scots converted a Skyhawks' turnover into an 11-yard TD. They missed a scoring opportunity when they hit the post on a 15-yard field goal attempt and had a 71-yard TD run nullified by a holding penalty.
The Scots made it 21-0 in the second quarter with TD runs of five yards and one yard. A fumble recovery on the kick-off after the Scots' second TD and an unnecessary roughness penalty against the Skyhawks resulted in the Scots' third TD.
"We didn't come ready to play. That's the one big thing that beat us up in the first half," Thera-Plamondon said.
The Skyhawks played like a team looking ahead to its tier III regional semifinal against the Peace River Pioneers on Nov. 12 in Peace River instead of trying to advance to the Carr Conference semifinal Friday against the Austin O'Brien Crusaders.
"I would like to chalk it up that ABJ was a heck of a team and they came here to play," Johnson said.
The Skyhawks, ranked fifth in tier III, and the eighth-ranked tier II Scots finished league play in a three-way tie in fourth place at 2-4.
"We played them September 8 [and won 27-7] and since then they have got much, much better. They laid a real whupping on Bellerose [42-15] and Bellerose beat us [13-0]. We told our boys they were going to be a tough team and they were. It was a heck of a ball game," Johnson said.
Cue the comeback
On the last play before halftime, Zyla busted loose for 10-yard TD and Tait-Vanderheide kicked the convert. A 27-yard catch by Thera-Plamondon at the 10 set the stage for the momentum-shifting score.
"That touchdown was huge," Johnson said. "This is a game of emotion and momentum. We picked it up at the end of the first half and carried it into the second half. We had another long drive for a score at the start of the second half and then it was a different ball game."
Landon Wenger's five-yard TD capped off a 51-yard drive that lasted 4:21 to start the third quarter. Tait-Vanderheide's convert was blocked.
On the Skyhawks' next possession, Zyla was picked off in the end zone with 1:44 left until quarter time.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Scots fumbled the ball at their 12 and the Skyhawks converted the turnover into a 10-yard TD by Tyler Demers to make it 21-19. The two-point conversion pass fell incomplete.
The Scots replied with a 23-yard TD run on third and four with 5:40 to play. The conversion put the Scots up by nine.
However the Skyhawks refused to quit and scored twice on their last three possessions to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.
"We started believing a little bit more instead of vice-versa like the first half," Johnson said.
The playoffs continued Friday for the Skyhawks against 5-0-1 Austin O'Brien. The first-place Carr team is also No. 1 in the tier II rankings. The score was unavailable at press time.
"We're going to line up and play hard against AOB. We have every intention of winning that ball game and going to the Carr conference final," Johnson said. "After our fiasco against Bev Facey [63-14 loss last week] we talked about going on a run and tonight was the first game."
