The Bow Valley Bobcats swept a home-and-home series with the George McDougall Mustangs last week, posting wins of 19-0 in Cochrane on Sept. 28 and 27-7 on Oct. 2 in Airdrie.
Marcus McKiernan led the Bobcats, now 4W-0L on the season, with three touchdowns during the rematch, including one on a clever play.
“The hook-and-ladder is kind of a trick play that we’ve been doing since the beginning of the year, but it’s the first time it’s really worked,” he said.
“Marcus is the offensive leader on our team,” said Bobcats’ defensive coordinator Steve Hall. “He’s in Grade 12 and really carries the bread for us out there.”
“We knew to look for No. 20 (McKiernan),” said Mustangs’ head coach Brent Legault. “He’s a guy we had to keep an eye on the whole time. But he earned his touchdowns. They didn’t run anything we didn’t expect to see, except the hook-and-ladder.”
After a scoreless first quarter, the Mustangs (0W-4L) opened the scoring, midway through the second, when quarterback Jordan Mackenzie found a wide open Mike Callaway for a 35-yard touchdown pass.
But a couple of costly George Mac penalties provided Bow Valley with good field position and McKiernan scored his first touchdown on a six-yard run with 2:40 left in the half. Ninety seconds later, the Bobcats ran the hook-and-ladder, a play where the quarterback throws a short hook pass to a receiver, who then laterals the ball to an unmarked player from the backfield – in this case McKiernan.
“I had great blocking from the line and all the receivers, so basically all I had to do was get to the outside,” he said. “It was a team effort for sure.”
Bow Valley added to its lead four minutes into the third quarter on a 27-yard field goal. McKiernan, on his third touchdown three minutes later, and a 36-yard field goal completed the Bobcats’ offensive effort.
“Our boys showed a lot of good character today,” Hall said.
“They came back from the adversity in the first quarter and really drove it home the rest of the game. We struggled in the first quarter, obviously with three turnovers, but we had much better third and fourth quarters. The guys really picked it up.”
“We played a quarter and a half of really strong football,” Legault said. “We were driving them all over the field, pushing them way back, and we had a couple cracks at the endzone that we just couldn’t put through. The last two and a half quarters I think we got a little overconfident and Bow Valley mounted a great comeback.”
