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Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Sports 23 | Friday, May 23, 2014 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com "Connected to your Community" T.A. Blakelock's Brandon Tyrrell (left) and St. Thomas Aquinas's Roland Dodoo are stride for stride as they near the finish line of the senior boys' 100-metre dash Wednesday at the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference track-and-field championships in Hamilton. Tyrrell beat out his friend and training partner by seven one-hundredths of a second. | photo by Herb Garbutt -- Oakville Beaver -- @Herbgarbutt Oakville Trafalgar cruises to another Halton senior boys' rugby title by Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver Staff Club teammates on track for OFSAA by Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver Staff They matched each other stride for stride to the finish line, the difference between the two sprinters barely perceptible. They pushed their chests forward as they strained for the finish line and though the result may not have been immediately apparent to those watching, Roland Dodoo knew. "You got me, man," the St. Thomas Aquinas runner said, turning to his right before he even had a chance to slow down. "You got me." In the lane beside him was T.A. Blakelock's Brandon Tyrrell, who crossed the line in 10.94 seconds, 0.07 ahead of Dodoo to win the senior boys' 100-metre dash on the opening day of the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference (GHAC) high school track-and-field championships Wednesday in Hamilton. There were obviously no hard feelings between the two as they shook hands and exchanged back slaps. "Great race," Tyrrell said to his friend. Though rivals for the day, Tyrrell and Dodoo regularly wage friendly battles training with the Oakville Legion Track and Field Club. To hear them tell it, they could have gone back to the line 15 minutes later and had a different result. If Dodoo is to beat his training partner at next week's South Regional meet in Mississauga, he knows what the key is. "I need to work on my starts," he said. "But he has a better finish," Tyrrell is quick to add. Ideally, Tyrrell's starts and Dodoo's push over the final 40 me- tres will carry them both to the provincial high school championships. Dodoo is looking to make his first Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) final while Tyrrell, who had a fourth-place finish in the junior ranks, hopes to break through and land on the podium. And if they can get there together, all the better. "We've been working together. It's good to have a teammate to push me," Tyrrell said. "Hopefully we can go to OFSAA together and destroy it." Webb student wins junior boys' 1,500m title Also looking to go to OFSAA is Garth Webb's Brayden Tiels after winning the junior boys' 1,500m in four minutes, 29.36 seconds to eclipse his personal best by six seconds. Tiels trailed Bishop Ryan's Adam Sunavsky as the bell rang for the final lap but overtook his rival and pulled away down the stretch with seemingly plenty left in the tank. "The first two laps were really pedestrian, then the other kid took control, but Brayden followed the plan perfectly," said Webb coach Greg Dailey. "With 300 metres to go, he increased his pace every 100m and he finished like a house on fire. He had an incredible finishing kick." The only concern now is trying to keep Tiels on track. He expected to miss the second day of the GHAC meet because he was going to a basketball tournament with his Oakville rep team. So how did a basketball playing power forward wind up as a track star? "I started running cross-country with (teammate Evan Notley) and he had big plans for track and I guess I was a part of see Dartmouth on p.24 The Oakville Trafalgar Red Devils' performance has long been judged on a provincial scale. That's understandable, given that OT has won 42 of the last 44 Halton senior boys' rugby championships. But every so often, a team rises up to challenge the school that has dominated for so long. This was not one of those years. Led by Pat Sadler's three tries, OT dominated Thursday's Halton Tier 1 final from the beginning on its way to a 69-7 victory over Georgetown's Christ the King Jaguars at Burlington's Sherwood Forest Park. Brendan Dickie, Shawn Lachance-Coward and Josh Ince each added a pair of tries -- singlehandedly outscoring their opponents. Alex Fulton, Cam Elliot, Alex Konrad and Scott Mitchell added singles. "We're a smaller team so we've worked a lot on ball movement," said OT coach David Schaffler. "Our speed helps, especially on a big, wide field like this. Our tempo is so quick, a lot of teams can't stay with us." That was certainly the case in league play where OT won each of its games by at least 30 points. For the season, the Red Devils outscored their opponents 249-41 heading into the final. The Red Devils' season was not without its challenges, though. With the Tier 1 ranks shrinking to just three teams -- teams did play some crossover games against the AAA/AAAA division -- OT saw even fewer teams than in previous years. "It does hurt us a lot," said OT captain Jackson Finkbeiner. "Sometimes our level drops down. It's not that the teams are bad, we just don't play our best." The Red Devils tried to counter that by taking a March break trip to England where they played a series of exhibition games. "Going to England prepped us a lot," Sadler said. "They played such a fast pace and their off loading game was so good. You start looking at the field in different ways." And though the Halton final was a necessary step, it will be the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) tournament that will determine the success of the Red Devils' season. OT can advance to provincials Tuesday with a victory over Cathedral in the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference final. see Red on p.24