Remarkable comeback season

Toronto Junior Argos were one-and-done in the Ontario Football Conference playoffs this year, but their remarkable turnaround season is what will be remembered.

Starting quarterback Calvin Vaughan admits to being left with a bad taste in his mouth about the playoff loss for weeks following a 31–23 loss to Peterborough Wolverines July 28 at St. Michael’s College. In a sitdown interview at St. Michael’s College a few weeks afterward, though, the 6-foot-6 quarterback was able to reflect on the regular season reversal of fortunes over 2012.

[attach]7038[/attach]The midtown-based Junior Argos, a part of the Ontario Football Conference, closed out the 2013 campaign with a 7–1 record. They had gone 1–7 the year before.

The Wolverines playoff triumph avenged a 16–9 loss against Toronto a month before. But avenging a frustrating 2012 season had been on the minds of the Junior Argos from the moment the squad met for winter training in February.

With junior varsity coach Carlo Onorati taking charge of the senior varsity squad, they were intent on improving the junior varsity players who were rising to the varsity level. The training started earlier for the squad, in the winter inside the dome at St. Mike’s.

“We didn’t do that in the past — have the dome practices in the winter,” said Vaughan, who also starts for St. Mike’s Blues during the school year. “That was really good for us as a team, because we really got to see who we had.”

With a no-huddle offense running plays without rest, Vaughan and the offensive unit, which included receiver Matt Crocker, scored seemingly at will all season.

“We’d meet up a lot outside of regular practice and throw the ball around; I’d do routes,” said Crocker, who is also Vaughan’s classmate at St. Mike’s. “It’s just a connection that’s been built over time.

“It’s all natural now: I know his tendencies, he knows mine and that’s from all the hard work off the field.”

Throughout the season, commitment by the defense to stopping the run kept many of the league teams’ offenses struggling.

In the Junior Argos’ seven wins, the defense allowed 9.1 points a game, including single-digit scores in five of their games.

In their Week 7 win against the Clarington Knights, the defensive line gave up 119 total yards of offense, including minus-five yards passing. That performance garnered the unit a Defensive Line of the Week award from the league.

It was a defence led by linebacker John Birnie, who praised the coach for improving the team in all aspects.

“Carlo is an amazing head coach,” said Birnie, who was coached by Onorati in the past. “We had fantastic personnel on the team, coaching-wise.”

The turnaround also had a tremendous impact on Birnie. He was scouted and recruited by the University of Guelph Gryphons football team in the summer.

“I hadn’t played football for the Junior Argos for a while because, in all honesty, the varsity program lacked talent and a good coaching staff, and when I heard Carlo was moving up I jumped right on the opportunity to come up,” Birnie said. “And I didn’t regret it.”

The Junior Argos only regular season loss was a 41–7 decision to eventual league runner-up Huronia Stallions. After surprising themselves by beating a strong Peterborough squad in the regular season meeting, Vaughan said, the Junior Argos went into the playoff meeting brimming with confidence.

“We thought we were just going to roll right by them, and I guess we were just looking by them to Huronia, which was the next [game],” he said.

The playoff game’s fate rested on a dramatic fourth quarter, where the Junior Argos, losing 17–9 at half time, worked their way back on scoring from receivers Trevel Thomas-Wright and Treyion Charles. Down by eight points late in the game, Vaughan stepped out, looking to go downfield to keep their season alive.

But the Wolverine defense batted down the Hail Mary pass and held on to win the game 31–23.

“It hurt really bad, especially to know that we had the talent to go a lot further,” Vaughan said, reflecting on the dramatic moment and the unfavourable result.

The sting of the playoff game lingers, but Vaughan says he is focusing on the great things his team did.

“Looking back on this, we won’t look back on the Peterborough loss,” he said. “We’ll look back on the better memories of it, at beating Peterborough the first time, at beating North Halton — a team we thought that was going to contend with us.

“We’ll look back to the friendships we made on the field and all the good times we had at practice.”