NANAIMO — The regular season is drawing to a close for BC high school football.
In Nanaimo, the John Barsby Bulldogs AA varsity and junior varsity will be moving on to the playoffs. The varsity squad will play one more regular season game versus Windsor while junior varsity ended with a 20-8 against Windsor’s JV club.
Barsby coach Rob Stevenson said his teams have shown great improvement going back to offseason workouts and transitioning to camp, preseason and regular season play.
“Our philosophy is to get better each day and to focus inwardly on what we’re doing. There’s a playoff conversation obviously and we’re jockeying for the best seed we can get going into the post season tournament.”
Being a student athlete is a challenge and Stevenson said the Barsby program aims to give students the resources to excel at both.
“We have study hall on Thursdays and we go over it with our athletes, they need to be able manage their time. Our program has produced players that have gone onto university degrees and PHDs you name it.”
With playoffs just around the corner at Barsby the varsity team is 3-3 with a game left and the JV side concluded the regular season at 3-1.
Stevenson saids his varsity team especially still hasn’t reached their peak yet.
“When we find our zen, and I think we’re close, we’re going to be a dangerous football team and we can play with anyone. With the junior varsity if we can stay healthy, especially up front, we can match up against any team.”
At Nanaimo District Secondary School, their AAA varsity team had their season ended with a 34-0 loss to Mission on Saturday, Oct. 29.
Nate Stevenson, head coach for the NDSS team, said his group of 28 players were involved in some tight games.
“We were a good inside running team and our defence played tough. Two thirds of our squad is graduating so it’ll be another year of recruiting in our hallways in 2023.”
Stevenson added he enjoys seeing kids turn into young adults through football.
A 1-5 finish wasn’t the record the team was looking for but Stevenson said his players still learned important lessons about dependability and reliability.
“We talk about it a lot, are you a good teammate or not? We focus on it here and its the same in the real world as well.”
The NDSS program will have an annual general meeting in January and start throw arounds for the next season in March.
Details of the playoff schedule will be released shortly on the BC high school football website.
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