WALLACEBURG – The combination of a formidable foe and a three-week layoff was too much for the Wallaceburg Tartans to overcome.
The Tecumseh L’Essor Aigles beat the Tartans 29-15 in the SWOSSAA ‘AA’ senior football final Saturday at Wallaceburg District Secondary School.
The Tartans were playing their first game since their LKSSAA regular-season finale Nov. 1. They won the ‘AA’ final by forfeit when the Great Lakes Wolfpack chose to not play.
“Our goal was to compete today and I think we accomplished that,” Tartans head coach Rob MacLachlan said. “It’s tough with a 23-day layoff to try to just all of a sudden crank it up against a team that’s on top of their game.
“We made plays, but we also made mistakes at crucial times that gave them some big runs. That’s going to happen you’re not on top of your game.”
The Aigles won the WECSSAA ‘AA’ final Nov. 15.
They’ve beaten the Tartans three straight years in the SWOSSAA final.
“‘Third time’s the charm,’ was what I was thinking, but I guess not,” Tartans lineman Caleb O’Leary said with a chuckle.
The Aigles scored late in the second quarter for a 22-8 lead. They reached the end zone again late in the third to go up 29-8.
“We had a couple bad plays where we shot ourselves in the foot, but overall we played a good game,” O’Leary said. “They were a pretty good team as well, so it’s hard to come against them. Overall, they got us in the end.”
The Aigles’ only two losses this season were to Windsor teams (Holy Names and Herman) ranked in the top 10 in Canada.
The Tartans finished in a four-way tie for second in the LKSSAA standings at 3-3.
They took a one-week break before getting back on the field a week before the SWOSSAA final.
“We prepared well,” MacLachlan said. “I thought we made a lot of good plays today, but I thought at times defensively we couldn’t make a stop when we needed to and I thought we had a little hard time with the outside running game of theirs.”
The field was a muddy mess, especially up the middle where the Tartans did a relatively good job stopping the Aigles. But when the Aigles ran to the outside and found better footing, they were hard to catch.
The Tartans tried to prepare for the Aigles’ speed, but practising isn’t the same as playing a game.
“When you haven’t seen that in three weeks, you can practise all you want and draw up the plays all you want, but when you’re not experiencing that first-hand, it takes you awhile to catch up to it,” MacLachlan said.
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