This year’s Junior Provincial Championships took place in Port Hope, on the beautiful Trinity College School Campus. Durham’s teams, Stud and Nightfury, were the only two teams not from Toronto or Ottawa.

On the women’s side, it was Nightfury’s first formal tournament of the season, as many of their athletes had spent the spring competing in provincial and national competitions with their high schools. The team managed to put up some great points against tough competition, and landed in third at the end of the weekend.

On the Men’s side, Stud went through Saturday feeling a bit like a fish out of water – They lost by significant margins to both Toronto and Ottawa’s A teams, and they defeated the B and C teams from the bigger cities by similar scores. The excitement came on Sunday in the “Game to Go”, as Stud had a rematch against Ottawa’s A Team “Ignite” for the final bid to Nationals. After the previous day’s 15-4 loss, the Durham team came out aggressively and took the lead.  It was a highly spirited and dramatic game.

As the clocked ticked down, Stud put up one last long throw into the endzone which was caught, and sent the game to a Universe Point.With parents and fans crowding the sidelines, Ottawa would go on to score their next point, but Stud held their heads high in the knowledge that in just their second year, they nearly became the first non-Ottawa/Toronto team to qualify out of Ontario in over a decade.