By Brad Coccimiglio

Rain and mud doesn’t stop them.

Neither does some snow or a little bit of cold weather.

Football players are willing to play through just about anything just to get a chance to play the game.

Much like their counterparts around the province, Belleville high school football players at the senior and junior level are working through whatever is thrown their way in order to become the top team in the province.

That being said, high school football in Belleville is alive and thriving. With top quality competition in and around the city, Belleville has the skill to compete at the provincial level.

With three high school football programs in Belleville rated at the triple-A level, as well as eight others in the Kawartha region, top-notch high school football is within a stones throw of most areas in the Quinte region. Those numbers also don’t include the various double-A teams in the area, which includes schools such as Nicholson , Moira , and Bayside in the immediate area of Belleville, as well as Peterborough’s Adam Scott among others. The triple-A schools in the Bay of Quinte district include Centennial , Quinte Secondary , and East Northumberland .

Adam Scott has provided some stiff competition for some of Belleville’s top programs in recent weeks. Adam Scott has scheduled games against Belleville schools such as Quinte Secondary and Centennial. In back to back weeks, the Peterborough program provided an exciting finish against the two schools.
High School football
Against Quinte Secondary earlier this month, Adam Scott jumped out to an early lead and looked as though it was in for an easy afternoon. With cool weather rolling through the area, Quinte Secondary finally managed to get rolling and came away with a 36-23 win thanks to a second-quarter touchdown run by quarterback Justin Armstrong. The 82-yard run sparked a comeback that saw the Saints outscore Adam Scott 29-7 in the second half en route to the victory.

Centennial fought the elements to defeat Adam Scott just two days after Quinte Secondary’s victory. During a cold, rainy, muddy day, Centennial managed to defeat the Peterborough school in a similar fashion to that of Quinte Secondary. A strong second half gave the Chargers the victory.

Centennial and Quinte Secondary School’s football programs, two of Belleville’s triple-A squads, have provided the two schools with plenty to cheer about over the years. Generally, the schools are classified as triple-A depending on the size of enrolment. Schools with between 900 and 1,250 students are generally in the triple-A category though those with smaller populations can request to play their OFSAA games a level up from where they would normally be situated. Schools with over 1,250 students are classified in the quadruple-A category though there currently are no Belleville-area schools in that category. The other triple-A school in the Bay of Quinte district is East Northumberland.

“Certainly the quality of play in the Bay of Quinte league is substantial,” said Centennial coach Joe DiCersce. “It’s very good because of what happened with minor league football in the past 15 or so years. The junior league is tight this year and the senior league is pretty exciting for everybody.”

“The league has gone through some growing pains in the last few years,” added Quinte Secondary coach Rick Elliott, “but teams like Bayside, Trenton and Bancroft are making strides and really catching up.”

Centennial is coming off a season that saw them win the Bay of Quinte region and also show well at the Central Ontario Secondary School Athletics play-downs. The Chargers find themselves as a perennial power in the Belleville football scene, regularly posting strong showings locally and regionally.

“We’ve had a lot of luck and won a lot of tight games,” said DiCersce of Centennial’s dominance. “Certainly Quinte has a great program. They’ve got a fabulous coaching staff there. We’ve had a little bit of a horseshoe. When you come out on the high end it draws kids out.” “There’s such a good rivalry with teams like Quinte,” DiCersce continued. “There are good coaches throughout the league that always bring you a good game. The football’s bound to be better when you play good teams each week.”

In a similar fashion, the Quinte Secondary program also finds itself on the minds of most when thinking about the top high school programs locally. The school of just under 1,000 students, much like Centennial with high student enrollment, allows for more choice when it comes to selecting the final roster for the new season. Having a program that dominates the schedule also helps when drawing new student-athletes to play.

Quinte Secondary has struggled at times this season, though Elliott believes it has something to do with the weather. Having played games in bad weather this season, Quinte Secondary has had a tough time running their typical offense.

“We just seem to be running into a lot of bad luck with the weather so we can’t really run our offense,” Elliott said of this season’s work.

“We’ve just got to pound the game running and we’re not a big team. I’d like to spread the ball around with our passing game.”

There are three major dates when it comes to senior football in the Quinte area. First of all, the Bay’s top two teams will play for the city title on Nov. 3 with the winner earning a berth in the Eastern Ontario Secondary School Athletics play-downs the following weekend. The date for the EOSSA play-downs is not yet nailed down, though it will be held on one of two days. The date will be either Nov. 17 or Nov. 18.

On Dec. 7 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, the top teams in the province will face off for the right to be called provincial champions. Both DiCersce and Elliott feel that Belleville schools have what it takes to compete against what the province has to offer. With the opportunity to play against quality competition in the region such as Adam Scott, it allows the schools to build themselves. With a small group of local schools, new competition is tough to find.

With the Kawartha region fielding teams very close to Belleville, it gives any Bay of Quinte schools an opportunity to find new competition in order to give their programs a chance to better themselves. With over 800 student-athletes competing in the central-Ontario region of OFSSA and 16,000 across the province, football is one of the most popular sports among high school athletes. Only soccer and basketball have numbers similar to football in participation.