After a 24-17 victory in the Tier 3 Provincial regional semi-final over the feisty Cardston Cougars, the Cochrane Cobras will continue their quest for a fifth straight provincial title when they take on the Brooks Buffalos on Nov. 17 in Brooks. Cochrane took an early 7-0 lead, but Cardston responded with 17 straight points between the first and second quarter to emphatically respond to the early Cobras touchdown. But with just under 30 seconds remaining in the half, Xavier Vaillancourt hit receiver Dawson Laye with a beautiful touch pass that Laye caught in stride and outran the Cougars defenders to the end zone bringing Cochrane High within three. "There's a lot of them (turning points in the game) but that touchdown from Dawson is certainly one of them without a question," Cobras co-head coach Rob McNab said. "If we go down 17-7 at the half, things might be a little bit different. But having that late touchdown like that brings the spirit back up and gave us a little bit of a momentum shift ... it's a cliche thing to say but it was huge, no doubt about it." Midway through the third quarter another turning point took place. With Cardston backed up in their own end on third down, the Cobras special teams came up huge with a blocked punt that gave the home side the ball within the Cougars 10 yard line. Although Cochrane High did not score a major on the play, kicker Oscar Hughes booted another three points through the uprights to knot the game at 17. Later in the quarter, Cochrane started their drive just inside their own end of the field and managed to dink and dunk their way down to the red zone where Vaillancourt once again found Laye on out route in the flat to give the Cobras their first lead since early in the first quarter. Cardston had a few chances in the fourth quarter to tie the game including taking the ball to the Cobras' 15, but the interior of the Cobras defensive line flexed their muscles and forced a pair of sacks and stopped the Cougars on third and 30 to force a turnover and drained the clock thanks to a pair of long runs by Dylan Neis to give the Cobras the victory. "The blocked punt was another turning point. Then there were two sacks in a row in the fourth quarter that pushed them way out of field goal range, there were some real key plays that made up the game," McNab said. "We're up 24-17 and they're on the march so it was huge for us to get that stop. They were deep in our end and to get one sack brings it to second and long, but then to get another sack bringing it to third and long you just try and keep everyone in front of you when they decide to go for it because they were out of field goal range. It was massive, then to get those two long runs by Dylan to drain the clock helped end the game in our favour. But those two sacks started that procedure." Cochrane High will now play the Brooks Buffalos in the regional final, a team the Cobras beat last year by a score of 30-7. With that being said, McNab stated that this Brooks team was quite a bit different from the one they faced a year ago. "We played them last year but that was the first time we've played them in a long time and Brooks has some very good athletes plus we're on the road so we're expecting another doozy," McNab said. "I believe they're better. Their quarterback is back from last year and they have probably one of the best running back's in Western Canada so our work is going to be cut out for us trying to stop that young man for sure. They have really great team speed so that's another thing we're going to have to deal with so we're getting back to the practice field today in order to put a package together that we can hopefully use to beat them."
