This past Saturday, May 11, UW hosted the final event to close off the 2024 East-West Bowl week-long festivities. On a grim, gloomy afternoon, team West was able to post a dominating defensive performance and defeat team East 16-1.
The East-West Bowl is an event that features the top 100 Canadian University football players eligible for the 2025 CFL draft. These players are then split up based on the location of their university — everything east of Toronto (including Queen’s, Carleton, and Ottawa), all AUS, and RESQ teams make up team East. The remaining OUA teams and all teams playing in the CANWEST conference comprise team West.
Initially, six warriors were nominated and selected to participate in East-West: fourth-year running back Anthony Miller, third-year defensive back Anesu Latmore, third-year offensive lineman Daniel Dove, third-year linebacker James Hinsperger, third-year linebacker Keesean Bowen and third-year defensive lineman Kaden Jajal. Due to an injury, fourth-year defensive lineman Marcus Miller was a late addition to team West.
Scoring opened up in the first quarter for team West when University of Western kicker Brian Garrity knocked in a 23-yard field goal to put West up 3-0. Cut to the second quarter, team West quarterback Jackson Tachinski, from University of Manitoba, marched the ball down the field and found Rhet Varva, University of Saskatchewan receiver, for a 22-yard strike to put team West up 10-0. This play would prove to be the only major of the day, as Garrity knocked back two more field goals to bring his total to three for three and close out the scoring with 16 points.
Although the offence for team West did what they had to do to pull out a win, it was the dominating defensive performance from the West that stole the show. The West defence forced a total of four turnovers. Western defensive back Jackon Finley was able to pick off team East quarterbacks on two separate occasions while University of Regina’s Dolani Robison was able to add another one to that tally. To close out, McMaster linebacker Drake Bodi was able to force a fumble which was then recovered by a member of the West defense. The East offence was never really able to gain any momentum, as the West defence was all over them from kick-off to the final whistle.
When asked about the East-West Bowl as a whole, UW football head coach Chris Bertoia said, “It was an overall incredible experience that could not have happened without all the support and assistance from not only members of the football program, but also members of the athletics department and conference and catering services at the university as well.”
From a football standpoint, coach Bert said, “The skill level and level of competition at this year’s East West-Bowl was second to none, it is always a special opportunity when you can get the best in the nation, coaching and players-wise all together for one week.” He closed off his comments by mentioning that almost everyone he talked to over the course of the week had nothing but positives to say and was overall very impressed with the university as a whole.
It is fair to say that UW hosting the 2024 East-West Bowl was nothing short of a success.
