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Bulldogs win in regular-season opener

NANAIMO – The Barsby Bulldogs AA varsity team defeated the Windsor Dukes by a 44-20 score on Friday at Merle Logan Field.
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Barsby Bulldogs running back Matt Cooley gains yardage against the Windsor Dukes during Friday's game at Merle Logan Field. The Bulldogs won 44-20.

The Barsby Bulldogs were finally unleashed to play regular season football and they were big winners.

John Barsby Secondary School's AA varsity team defeated the Windsor Dukes by a 44-20 score on Friday at Merle Logan Field.

"I feel like we played like a really good team in general, both sides of the field, but we could have done a lot better and there are some things that we've got to fix in practice," said Johnson Nguyen, Bulldogs wingback. "But we're getting close, not to being a perfect team, but to being a really great team."

Rob Stevenson, Bulldogs coach, said "we've been getting better all year," and that growth continued with Friday's effort.

He said his offence increased its tempo.

"We outworked our opponents at the point of attack, we got a lot of great double teams, passing efficiency was very good…" he said. "It was pretty complete."

The defence played pretty well, Stevenson said, "but they got a couple on us we don't normally allow, so we'll go back to work on that."

Nguyen scored three touchdowns for the Bulldogs, all on short rushing plays. Justis MacKay-Topley had two TDs and Alex Bonnetplume scored the other. Quarterback Nathanael Durkan threw for 124 yards and tailback Matt Cooley rushed for 155 yards on seven carries.

Defensively, Doyle Sosnowski led the way with three sacks and eight tackles, Cory Fletcher made 13 tackles and Parker Bowles had 10 tackles.

"This win helps us in the standings, but also helps us with our own team confidence…" Nguyen said. "We've just got to look at the bigger picture right now, we've got to take it one team at a time and we've got to realize that the competition's just going to get tougher and tougher every single week."

GAME ON … The Bulldogs face the Carson Graham Eagles on Oct. 23 at 2 p.m. at Merle Logan Field.

sports@nanaimobulletin.com