Pride Put Final Stamp on Perfect Season – Set Sights on Provincials

Daniel Ball
www.KramMag.com

Since the beginning of the 2012 high school football season Notre Dame has been setting themselves apart from their competition. Producing a blowout win week after week, the Pride’s dominance in Division 1 has been undisputed.

The Pride’s playoff run has been no different.

In their fourth City Finals appearance in as many years, the heavily favoured Notre Dame squad kept their foot on the throttle, defeating the Henry Wise Wood Warriors 37-1.

Photo by Daniel Ball

The Pride offensive unit, who posted a league-high 279 points during the regular season, got off to a quick start against Henry Wise Wood, capping off two perfectly executed drives with two rushing touchdowns. The offence continued their onslaught throughout the game, adding a passing touchdown before the half and one more on the ground in the third quarter.

The top-ranked Notre Dame defence was stingy as usual, causing multiple turnovers and holding the typically high-powered Warriors offence to a paltry 1 point. The Pride defence were able to capitalize on Henry Wise Wood’s need to play catch-up and directly contributed 8 points of their own thanks to a safety and an interception returned for a touchdown.

Notre Dame has been so proficient this year in nearly every aspect of team-football that it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what propels them to such a high level of success.

Pride head coach Dave Diluzio has assembled an elite coalition between his offence and defence and attributes much of his success this season to unity and teamwork.

“It’s always hard to compare teams but I really liked the closeness of this team,” Diluzio said of his 2012 squad. “We have three sets of brothers on the team and six of the coaches are former players from the program. We’ve got three assistant coaches on our team that could be head coaches anywhere else and be successful. I’m blessed to have those guys. It’s a real close-nit team and that was fantastic.”

Despite claiming his third City Championship in the last four years, Diluzio, who also acts as the team’s defensive coordinator, continues to be amazed by the output of his players.

“If you told me at the beginning of the year that my defence would allow whatever points we allowed I would have been surprised, but the kids really played well together,” Diluzio continues. “They played really well as a team and I’m really proud as a unit. Our offence helped our defence and vice versa so it was a really great team environment.”

Henry Wise Wood head coach Cody Ehrmann adopts a similar blueprint for his team and credits Diluzio for perfecting the formula.

“Dave’s got one of the best teams I’ve seen in 10 years. They’ve been building on that for the last three years with their boys,” Ehrmann said. “They execute and they make very few mistakes. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t win a provincial championship.”

And rather than take time off to celebrate their win in the City Finals, Notre Dame is right back on the practice field preparing for their provincial semifinal match against the L.C.I. Rams in Lethbridge on November 17.

Diluzio’s undefeated Pride are approaching provincials with the same “one game at a time” motto that they’ve employed all season.

“We didn’t really set out this season saying that our number one goal is to win the City Championships. We just kind of went one week at a time and the kids really embraced that. We’re excited to be playing in a provincial semifinal next week,” Diluzio said. “We play L.C.I. and they’re going to be a tremendous opponent so we’re obviously very excited to get the chance to play them.”

Photo by Daniel Ball