Canisius and Bishop Timon to Meet for Monsignor Martin Championship

Ralph Wilson Stadium will be rocking this weekend, but the Bills won’t be on the minds of those in attendance.

              Canisius and Bishop Timon/St. Jude will clash for the Monsignor Martin championship game Saturday afternoon, in a rematch of one of the best regular season games this season. The schools finished first and second in their league during the regular season.

Canisius huddles after Thursday night's semi-final victory

              The Canisius Crusaders come into the game boasting a 10-0 record, and are ranked as the number one school in the area by The Buffalo News. Canisius’ head coach Rich Robbins has his team in position to win their second league title in four years. Before that, their last outright league championship was in 1980.

After their semi-final win last week against St. Francis, Robbins looked ahead to this Saturday’s showdown with Timon.

              “They’re tough kids,” he said. “We had a hell of a game with them Friday night a couple weeks ago out at Tift, and I expect nothing different on Saturday.”

              Timon enters the game with a record of 6-4, and is coming off a semi-final victory over St. Joe’s. The Tigers are making their first appearance in the championship game since the Monsignor Martin league adopted a playoff format in 2002. Their last outright league championship was in 1994.

“It’s a big one,” said Timon senior Jackson Brown after practice Tuesday. “I don’t think we’ve ever been to a title game, so if we get a win, it’d be good to end the Canisius undefeated season and finally get a championship for Timon.”

              Both team’s rosters are stacked with playmakers all over the field. For Canisius, junior running back Qadree Ollison leads the way, with 1681 rushing yards and 22 rushing touchdowns on the season. Both statistics are Canisius single-season records.

Timon coach Charlie Comerford knows that slowing down Ollison will be key to his team’s success on Saturday.

“He’s a great player. I think they’re going to pound us,” Comerford said. “No one has stopped him all year. He’s probably the best player in Western New York, so we have to come up with something.”

Senior lineman Ryan Hunter is another playmaker for Canisius, although his contribution is usually to provide room for Ollison to run. After the Crusaders’ semi-final victory Thursday night, he talked about Timon’s physicality on both sides of the ball.

“I’m excited to play them. Timon is a really good team, they’re really physical up front,” Hunter said. “They have some great weapons, DiMillo, Jackson Brown, players like that. It should be a really good, physical game.”

Timon practices Tuesday, in advance of Saturday's big game

Timon is led by senior quarterback Ryan Dougherty, who has played through an ACL injury for most of the season. Dougherty realizes the significance of Saturday’s game, and his enthusiasm was evident after practice Tuesday.

“It’s exciting. I’ve been wanting to be in this game for three years now,” he said. “This is what we worked so hard for after we lost last year, we dedicated to ourselves, just to work for this game and be here. We’re finally here and it’s exciting.”

Timon has also benefitted from getting key players back from injury late in the season. The Tigers were plagued by injuries all season, and senior Lewis Vacarro feels as though we are finally seeing this team’s true potential.

“When we started off the season we were healthy, and we started off really good,” said Vacarro. “Now, everyone is coming back and we’re clicking.”

Canisius won the regular season matchup between the teams26-14. The game was physical and evenly fought until the fourth quarter, when the Crusaders were able to pull away late. Kickoff for the championship game is scheduled for noon on Saturday at Ralph Wilson Stadium.