For just a little while anyways, the juniors will enjoy bragging rights at St Charles College.

Where the senior Cardinals boys football team advanced to the city finals but came up just shy of their end goal, beaten in that contest by the St Benedict Bears, the junior SCC lads completed the task at hand.

Setting aside an early long touchdown pass by the Lively Hawks, the team that ran the table with seven straight wins in Sudbury were quite methodical in disposing of the upset-minded LDSS crew, capturing the banner with a 29-7 win.

It would be the Hawks who would get things going on the scoreboard as Carter MacLennan hauled in a well-placed pass from quarterback Reid Bentley, making his way to the end zone on a pass and run play that covered 50 yards.

The Cards got that score back before the end of the first quarter as running back Ryker LeRoy capped off a solid SCC drive, bulldozing his way home from the two yard line as Gaddiel Appiah-Hagan made good on his first of four converts on the day.

St Charles secured the lead for good early in quarter two as pivot Brody Lepage called his own number from one yard out as the Cards were up 14-7 at the break.

More of the same in quarter three as the Cardinals again stick to mainly the ground game to move the chains, with LeRoy again finishing things off, this time from the five yard line.

Fittingly, it was LeRoy that would account for the final SCC major with just over three minutes to play, with Appiah-Hagan following up his PAT by drilling the ensuing kickoff into the end zone for one final point.

That was more than enough scoring for the St Charles defense, which bounced back from an early blip to shut down the Hawks for much of the contest, fully aware of the components of the Lively attack that needed to be slowed down.

"Lively is the first team that we've played that has a really good throwing game," acknowledged second year safety Max Larche, who picked off a pair of passes in helping the Cards thwart the opposition on the turf of James Jerome.

"We had to watch that - and we did."

Larche is the younger brother of St Charles senior starting quarterback Nolan Larche, though he acknowledged that it wasn't just his sibling that would ultimately convince the 15 year-old grade 10 student to give football a try in the fall of 2025.

"Last year, I was kind of forced into playing and now it's my favourite sport," said Max with a smile. "My mom is really convincing - but it's the best choice I ever made."

From there, he could count on some ancillary work on his game, even as he was helping older brother out.

"He (Nolan) helped me with my catching a lot because I would always be running routes for him," said Max. "I could work on my hands and stuff."

St Charles will now travel to Sault Ste Marie on Wednesday to face their representatives in the NOSSA junior boys football final. In the NOSSA senior boys semi-final on Saturday, the Algonquin Barons overcame a 14-7 fourth quarter deficit, stealing a win away from the St Benedict Bears by a final score of 21-14, earning their place in the NOSSA senior final.