Didn’t take Cochrane High School Cobras long to find their provincial-championship form from a season ago.
After edging out to a 12-0 lead in the first quarter against Bert Church High School Chargers in Airdrie, Cobras broke the game open to win the Rocky View Sports Association season-opening football tilt 50-14 at Ed Eggerer Athletic Park on Sept. 11.
Senior receiver Evan Perrault reeled in three Tae Gordon touchdown passes (11 yards, 45 yards, 50 yards) to lead Cochrane’s offensive onslaught on a warm, breezy afternoon on the natural-grass field next to East Lake.
“The offence was just firing,” said Cobras co-head-coach and defensive coordinator Bruce O’Neil, who always likes to grind fellow head coach and offensive coordinator Rob McNab that Cobras are going to run the ball on every offensive play. With Cole Avery, Ethan Forrest and Thomas Campbell toting the rock this season, that’s not such a bad suggestion. But with Tae Gordon pitching and senior receivers like Perrault, Erik Nusl, Spencer Marchand and Grade 11 Zach Rabe catching, McNab is compelled to have his offence air it out as well.
O’Neil’s group will take care of the rest.
“The defence, we took a little while to get going,” he said. “Once we made our adjustments, the defence played quite well.”
Leading 50-6 late in the game, O’Neil put in his junior-varsity defensive unit. The Cobras youngsters stood up to the Chargers starting offence, only allowing Bert Church to score after seven penalty-aided scrimmage attempts from the Cochrane five-yard line.
“We’re very pleased about the J-V group,” O’Neil said. “We learned that the J-Vs are a pretty strong group.”
Chargers head coach Andy Kirk, a Cochrane Cobras alum who played for O’Neil in his high school days, knew his guys were in tough against Cobras. Sr. quarterback Mike Lees was pressured by O’Neil’s defence all day. Lees used Grade 10 running back Tolu Ojo with some success in the second half. But it was tough sledding overall for Chargers.
“Right now, their defensive line started to handle our offensive line a little bit,” Kirk observed following the game. “Their skill, expertise and knowledge of the game showed.
“Our game’s a work in progress.”
Along with Perrault’s three TDs, Avery (9-yard run); Erik Nusl (50-yard punt return and 21-yard pass) and Gordon (five-yard run) also scored. Ethan Forrest kicked several converts to go with the two-point conversions Cochrane scored.
“You know that hot knife through butter,” Kirk said, “that was a bit of our defence tonight. Cochrane’s first five or six possessions, they had four scores.”
Cochrane, an Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association Tier 3 school, is in B.C. this week playing AAA (Tier 1) provincial-champion South Delta Sun Devils. B.C. schools play American-rules football (four downs, 11 players, smaller field), so Cobras will have to adjust.
“We know that going in,” O’Neil stated. “We’ll just prepare as we always do and play our best.”
