Paris Panthers senior football team a work in progress

Article content

The Paris District High School senior football team people saw on Saturday won’t be the same as the one they’ll see at the end of the season.

Article content

Hosting Assumption College in their Athletic Association of Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk season opener, the Panthers were beaten 28-0 by the Lions.

Article content

Article content

Three long plays and a few missed assignments were the major causes in the loss for Paris but the biggest contributing factor may just be that the team is green.

Not only did the Panthers start eight players in Grade 11 on defence, they also welcomed several new players onto the team over the past few days.

“One of the big things is we’ve had a lot of kids just come out in the last week,” PDHS coach Norm Kelly said while discussing one of the team’s issues.

“Next week we’ll start coaching those guys so they can step in so we don’t have so many guys going both ways. Hopefully we’re a little less winded at the end of the game.”

It wasn’t as though the Panthers had a horrible game. In fact, they only trailed 7-0 at half on a 91-yard touchdown pass and then were burned twice more in the fourth quarter – once when a muffed punt was returned for a touchdown and a second time when an Assumption player scored on a long run.

Article content

“I think we moved the ball quite well on offence,” Kelly said. “Mistakes really hurt us. I think we’re going to do all right.”

Paris lost a good number of players from last year’s team to graduation. When it held its summer camp, there weren’t a lot of new faces.

“Most of the kids that were on the teams (junior and senior) last year came out for that,” Kelly said of the pre-season camp. “There were a couple newer kids but a whole whack just came out in the last week.”

Kelly is confident that once more players are ready to jump into the lineup, his team’s fortunes will improve. One thing the Panthers are really looking forward to this season is a new wrinkle.

In the past, there was only a berth at the Central Western Ontario Secondary Schools Association championship for the AABHN champion as there was only one CWOSSA event regardless of whether a school was A, AA or AAA.

This season, there will be CWOSSA AAA and AA football.

“Our goal is to win Brant County always, like every year,” said Kelly, whose school is AA along with North Park Collegiate.

Article content

“If we don’t, obviously if we get the chance to represent (AABHN) at AA, we’ll be trying to win AA CWOSSA.”

Kelly said he’s looking forward to seeing his team improve.

“We’re going to score,” said the coach, whose team came close early in the game but came up short on a dropped pass.

“Mistakes were killing us. We sent in five or six plays off the wristband and somehow they got mixed up. They were running different formations and plays than what we called in.

“I think once we clean that up – like I say, assignment, alignment, technique – once get get the assignment part cleaned up a lot more, the other stuff will flow a little better.”

Ignatius Burtnick and Kelechi Chuks each got two touchdowns for the Lions in the game, with quarterback Jude Rossignoli connecting with Burtnick for a long pass on the first score.

Burtnick also kicked all four converts. Josh Guimaraes and Duncan Ashby had interceptions for Assumption.

Colton Gloade and Maisen Vicente were outstanding on offence for the Panthers, who got strong games on defence from Nik Watler and Bhav Aujla.

Axel Cormier was fantastic on both sides of the ball for Paris.

Article content