Two Express teams will compete for OMFL title Sunday

July 31, 2013 · 0 Comments

TNT Express quarterback Andrew Tee looks for a receiver while Cambridge Lions defenders surround him during Sunday’s Ontario Minor Football League semifinals in Beeton. The Express earned the right to advance to the championship this Sunday after leaving the field with a 65-6 win over Cambridge.

TNT Express receiver Keiffer Fowler snags a pass during Sunday’s Ontario Minor Football League semifinal against the Cambridge Lions.
Photos by Brian Lockhart

By Brian Lockhart
The TNT Express will be sending two squads to the Ontario Minor Football League championships in Toronto Sunday.
The Express are based in Beeton, but have a wide recruitment area with many Caledon-based players signing up each season.
A lot of the success of the club comes from the fact that most of the Caledon area players also are on the roster on local high school football teams; experience that makes the difference for a team in the summer league.
Bantam Division
The bantam Express won their semifinal game 22-12 over the Niagara Generals at Mel Mitchell field in Beeton to earn their spot in the final.
The bantams ended the regular season with a 6-2 record and a second place finish.
The only team the Express lost to was the Orangeville Outlaws, who they will be facing in the final. The Outlaws are undefeated for the season.
This game should be an epic battle between two evenly-matched squads that have both a solid point-scoring offence and a tight defence. It will come down to which ever team can stop the other squad from getting the points.
The championship game will take place this Sunday (Aug. 5) at Esther Shiner stadium in Toronto. The kick-off is scheduled for noon.
Varsity Division
After going 7-1 in the regular season, the Express Varsity squad ended their semifinal game with a 65-6 slam dunk over the Cambridge Lions at Mel Mitchell field.
The Sunday game was in the Express’s hands for the entire four quarters, starting with a long throw from quarterback Andrew Tee to receiver Colin Hall early in the first quarter that gave the TNT squad six points to start the contest.
For the rest of the game, the Express turned up the pressure on the offence, and when the Lions had the ball, the TNT defence shut them down.
“We were ready. We came in healthy, we’ve been practising for this game for the past couple of weeks,” said Varsity head coach Mario Addorisio.
The team lost only one game all season, and that was to Hamilton July 15, when Steel City managed to squeeze out an 11-8 win over the Express.
Their final scheduled game didn’t take place when the Rexdale Raiders club folded before the end of the season.
“It would have been a bit of a tune-up game. When you don’t play for two or three weeks, it sort of hurts you,” Addorisio said. “But it seemed to help us, the boys. They were hot today.”
The final game Sunday will be another TNT-Orangeville match-up after the Outlaws Varsity squad won their semi-final 15-0 over Hamilton.
“We’ll practise Tuesday and Thursday like we do every week then we’ll go and play them on Sunday,” Addorisio said. “We’re just going to do more of what we’ve done here. We’re not going to bring out anything special or any trick plays, that’s not us. We play solid aggressive football. You have to be pretty good to beat us.”
The Varsity Division final is usually the highlight game of the OMFL championship day.
It will get underway at Esther Shiner stadium, starting at 3 p.m.