{"id":17965,"date":"2017-08-01T19:51:31","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T23:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17965"},"modified":"2017-08-01T19:51:31","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T23:51:31","slug":"lions-football-reaches-two-championship-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/lions-football-reaches-two-championship-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions football reaches two championship finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The York Region Lions will have not one, but two opportunities to bring home a provincial championship this summer.<br \/>\nBoth the Bantam and Varsity football programs earned a trip to the Ontario Varsity Football League (OVFL) finals last weekend after a pair of semifinal wins.<br \/>\nReaching their very first OVFL championship, the varsity Lions booked their ticket in dramatic fashion with a 24 \u2013 23 win over the Toronto Thunder at St. Maximilian Kolve field on Saturday.<br \/>\nThe top two teams in Ontario varsity football butted heads early in the first half, with neither team gaining much ground before an outpouring of offense after the break.<br \/>\nBen Langlois, a St. Max grad and commit to play for the Queen\u2019s University Golden Gaels in the fall, threw for 227 yards in the game and one touchdown, while rushing for 23 yards.<br \/>\nHaving lost just one game all season, the varsity Lions will face the Etobicoke Eagles in the championship game, who rolled over Oshawa in their semifinal.<br \/>\nThe Bantams took to Warrior Field in Waterloo the same evening in a tight defensive matchup with the Waterloo Predators, coming out on top by a score of 12 \u2013 7.<br \/>\nQuarterback Scott Barnett was a force to be reckoned with in the air and on the ground, throwing and rushing for 120 yards in each discipline, averaging 24 yards a play.<br \/>\nThey will face the Brampton Bulldogs in their championship match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The York Region Lions will have not one, but two opportunities to bring home a provincial championship this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2017-08-03-08.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}