They may not have cycled to the town hall on a cold February night, but the 18 South Frontenac residents who came out to talk about cycling in the township on Monday, February 16, certainly had less snowy roads on their minds.

Rookie Loughborough District Councilor, Ross Sutherland, called the meeting, and he was surprised by the numbers.

“I didn't have expectations of more than 10 people coming out, so I was really pleased with the turn out and with the discussion,” he said.

The cyclists talked about their favourite routes in the township, and a wide range of ideas were discussed on ways to promote bicycling in the township. They decided to form a group, which they are calling South Frontenac Rides.

Three co-chairs came forward to get things underway quickly. They are Leslie Kirby-Olcet from Perth Road Village, and Scott Gordon and Alastair Lamb from Sydenham.

Among those at the meeting was a representative from Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington Public Health, who said that the group's goals tie in nicely with Public Health's priority on active transportation, and that money was available to help promote activities.

Cycling also fits in to Frontenac County's trail initiative, which is slated for completion next year, and the Cataraqui Trail is another option for cyclists.

Three particular routes will be featured at South Frontenac Rides' first bike promotion day, which will take place in early June. Maps of the routes are already in the planning stages and other information for the novice cyclists will be available as well on that day. The group hopes to be able to create maps of numerous bike routes as they roll into the summer and fall biking season.

“The South Frontenac roads department has been widening roads by 2 feet whenever they have been doing repaving, which is a benefit for cyclists,” said Ross Sutherland, who cycled many of the roads in his own Loughborough District last summer during the municipal election campaign.

The next meeting of South Frontenac Bikes is set for March 9 at the township office/hall. For more information call 613-532-7846

Students at Sydenham High school have come together to support fellow student, Sam Eastman, who was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Sam, who is a grade 12 student at SHS, did not return from the Christmas holidays and when students began asking questions they recently found out why. Roughly three weeks ago Sam was diagnosed with stage 3 Non-Hogkin's lymphoma.

Soon after, his friends at the school immediately mobilized and decided to do something to show their support for Sam and his family. Three of Sam's closest friends, Chad, Aidan, and Ryan began the wave of school-wide support when they decided last week to shave their heads in the school cafeteria. The happening initiated an outpouring of support by other students at the school. By the end of the week over 50 students had shaved or cut off their hair and donated it to Locks for Love. Sam's close friend, Holly Thompson, invited students to the school cafeteria to paint t-shirts, and a school banner reading #SAMSTRONG was hung up in the school. T-shirts have been made and sold to raise funds as well and to date the school has collected over $1,000 in donations. The money will be given to Sam and his family to support them during Sam's treatment.

Currently Sam is undergoing chemotherapy at KGH in Kingston and his closest friends at the school have been keeping in close touch with him. Sam plays hockey, rugby and football at SHS, and also plays midget rep hockey in Westport. On February 9 he was well enough to attend the Westport's Rideau team's final home game of the season, where a number of fundraising events were also held.

The wave of support also spread to LaSalle Secondary School in Kingston where Sam was taking a special focus program prior to entering the hospital. Sam attended Perth Road Public School prior to moving to SHS in grade nine.

One close friend at SHS, Erica Veldman, said that the students coming together for Sam was only natural, given his popularity at the school. "Sam is a great guy; he is a lot of fun, very confident, and an all around very sweet guy. All of his friends know that he would do exactly the same for them.”

Another friend, Connor Bayers, said Sam is known for being “very approachable and is someone who always shows everyone respect.”

The #SAMSTRONG campaign is ongoing at SHS. Anyone wishing to make a donation to Sam and his family to help cover expenses can contact Corinna Goldring of student services at Sydenham High School at 613-376-3612 Ext. 316.

Phil Leonard conducts business from behind a desk in his garage. The house is across the courtyard from the garage and the grounds of his home outside of Harrowsmith are neatly tended and full of plants and flowers, courtesy of his life partner, Deb Bracken, who died earlier this year.

For Phil Leonard, the loss was (and is) acutely felt, but he is not one to dwell on it. Although he left municipal politics 11 years ago, he remains a key figure in the political life of South Frontenac.

I interviewed him back in September, a couple of days before the nomination deadline for last fall's election. He had signs for two of the candidates for mayor on his lawn, and I asked him if he would put up a sign for the third, if asked.

“I don't see why not,” he said, laughing, “it's not even up to me; the signs are on the road allowance anyway.”

Then when asked about a potential political comeback, he said, “If that's ever going to happen, you'll know pretty soon.”

Phil Leonard did not run for office last fall, but the candidate who won, Ron Vandewal - as well as everyone who has made a difference in South Frontenac politics in the post-amalgamation era - has spent time in Leonard's garage talking and listening.

“I ended up telling Gary Davison that he was welcome to come and visit, but not to talk politics anymore because he would sit and listen and then do whatever he was going to do in the first place,” he said.

Phil Leonard has municipal politics in his blood. His grandfather, Ray Babcook, was reeve of Portland Township five times, back when there was an election at the town hall at the beginning of January each year. His father was on the school board, and his uncle Keith was reeve as well.

“I've had uncles run against uncles over the years, that sort of thing; someone was always running for something,” he said.

In his own municipal career he sat on council for two terms and then was reeve of Portland Township for five terms, before becoming the first mayor of South Frontenac. Leonard served two three-year terms, between 1998 and the end of 2003. He also served as warden of Frontenac County on five different occasions.

And although he has been out of politics since 2003, he still remembers clearly the politics of the mid-90s and beyond, when the Frontenac townships were dragged into an amalgamation process that he describes as a “shotgun wedding”.

One of the key components to the entire negotiations, aside from working out how the Frontenac townships were going to amalgamate between themselves, were the negotiations with the City of Kingston.

“The City first wanted to expand west, to Loyalist Township, but when that didn't work out, they looked to the north,” he said. “But if they thought we would give them everything on a platter because we were country bumpkins, we showed them that wasn't going to happen,” he said.

The big prize for the City were Pittsburgh and Kingston townships. Typical of modern urban centres, the population was growing in the suburbs, but the work was in the City, as well as infrastructure costs so it was clear that those townships would have to become part of the new City.

“We negotiated payments for downloaded roads and we negotiated that the City had to provide service to the County at cost, because they were getting all that assessment from the two townships that they were swallowing,” Leonard said. “They didn't want that but they did want Pittsburgh and Kingston townships so they had no choice.”

One of those services that South Frontenac looked at, and the other townships may have been able to make use of as well, was policing.

“We had a big public meeting scheduled at Sydenham High School - this was after amalgamation. The City of Kingston Police Department was going to make a presentation, as was the OPP and we were going to decide which way to go, and we knew the City was going to make a lower bid. The day of the meeting I got a call from Gary Bennet, who was the first mayor of the new City, and he said the City was not going to bid on the contract. He told me why but I agreed not to repeat it,” said Phil Leonard.

The meeting went ahead that night, and Leonard recalls that he asked the OPP to make their presentation first.

“They made their offer and then we announced that the City wasn't going to make a counter-offer. It was a better deal than we would have gotten if the OPP knew they were the only bidder. I will say this, however; we have been really well served by the OPP in South Frontenac.”

“The Minister of Municipal Affairs, Al Leach, said we had to work something out or they would do it for us, but they also said something, and it was Premier Mike Harris who made the commitment, and I was at that meeting. He said that they were going to take the Education tax off the municipal roll, and that is a large part of the tax bill. They never did it, but that would have made it easier for us.”

As far as the horse trading that brought about South Frontenac, Leonard recalls that from the point of view of Portland Township, it was a risky business.

“We were in a strong position in Portland. We had reserves, paved roads, a dump, everything. Loughborough was in debt, and Storrington had money, but they had no dump because the City of Kingston had filled it up. Bedford wasn't sure where they were going to go. At one point the boundary was going to be Westport Road. South of the road was going to go be in South Frontenac and north was going to be in Central. But as I said it was a shotgun wedding; a lot of things were being negotiated.”

In the case of South Frontenac, the solution to the vast differences in financial standing and levels of service in the four townships was to institute an area-rating system whereby each would have its own tax rate and service standards set.

“We needed that until we could bring all of us to the same level,” said Leonard of the arrangement that lingered until 2010 when it was finally eliminated entirely.

As far as setting up the Frontenac Management Board in place of a full-fledged county, Leonard said that the idea was that the townships would run their own show and things would stay pretty simple.

“We talked about running it as country townships. We keep a small staff and hire locally when we needed work done. That was what we all wanted to do. But now there are more people working for South Frontenac than there were for all four townships combined. That wasn't supposed to happen,” he said.

In fact, the amalgamation order, which was signed on January 7, 1997, stipulated that the budgets of the new municipalities being created as of January 1/1998, including the new City of Kingston and the Frontenac Management Board, had to be lower than the combined 1996 budgets of the former municipalities that were being amalgamated to form them.

The stipulation did not extend beyond 1998, however, and as any resident of Frontenac County can attest, the 2014 taxation is a measure higher than it was in 1996.

When the first election for South Frontenac Council was held in 1997, Phil Leonard was elected as mayor, and what he was greeted with at the start of 1998 was something that no one could have envisioned - an unprecedented natural disaster, the ice storm of 1998.

“We had some people in place, and even a disaster plan from Portland, but we certainly weren't ready for what happened. No one was. Thank God for our volunteers and volunteer firefighters.” he said.

Leonard stayed at the Keeley Road Public Works office until late into the month as fire crews and volunteers led the effort to make sure everyone in the township was safe and the roads could be cleared and power lines restored.

“We were the fifth municipality in Ontario to declare a state of emergency. At one point the minister came in a helicopter, with Adrienne Aresenault from the CBC, and they asked me to go with them because I knew the territory. All you could see was ice everywhere you looked, and a lot of trees down, and those wild turkeys, because they were black. They wanted to see one of our emergency centers so I called over to Burridge and asked Arnold Quinn, who was the chief back then, if there was a place there big enough to get the chopper down, and he said yes. As luck would have it, just after we got there a call came in that a lady up the road had had a heart attack. So the helicopter left us standing there, and landed in her back yard and took her on to Kingston. We had to phone the road crew to come and get us.”

With all of the changes that have taken place in South Frontenac since amalgamation, Phil Leonard is no longer sure that as reeve of Portland he shouldn't have stood his ground and refused, as his friend Bill Thake had done in Westport, which never joined with any others and remains an independent village to this day.

“I just think that we have moved too far towards an urban service model, which was never necessary. We should have remained a country township as far as I'm concerned,” he said.

However, he does not regret changing Frontenac Management Board back to Frontenac County because, “The province never recognised the Management Board and we were being bypassed for grants, so we had no choice there."

He also thinks that bidding, and winning, the contract for ambulance service, was necessary and important.

“Do you think, if the City had it, they would have paid attention to the rural areas and built bases in Sydenham and Ardoch Road? No way. We have to look after the City but they wouldn't have had to look after us in the same way.”

But he thinks adding four more members to Frontenac's County Council, which happened in 2010, was a bad idea.

“All that can do is cost money, and make it harder to make decisions, that's all,” he said.

In the end, the amalgamation process, the ice storm and the first few years of South Frontenac politics took its toll on Phil Leonard, and that's why he walked away in 2003.

“The only time that I could get work done, at the office was between 2 and 6 in the morning, and between 10 and 12 at night. It totally exhausted me after a time. That's why I left when I did.”

And Phil Leonard will stay away, at least until 2017.

Dave Linton, a long time volunteer with Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS), not only talks the talk but also walks the walk - and in this case, skis the lopp.

At 75 years of age Linton knows first hand the benefits to seniors of regular daily exercise, its positive impact on mental and physical health and its ability to help them live in their homes independently and with dignity for as long as possible. It is with those ideas in mind that Linton will be skiing the Gatineau Loppett, a 51 km international cross-country ski marathon, the largest of its kind in Canada, which will take place on February 14 in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec.

Linton will be participating this year, not as he has done in the past, to raise funds for the SFCSC (he also has another idea about fundraising that I will mention later), but to raise awareness of the importance of daily exercise while also promoting the seniors programming offered at SFCSC.

Linton began volunteering with SFCSC 36 years ago when he and his wife Jennifer, who is the coordinator of the SFCSC food bank, first moved to the area. He currently volunteers as a fundraiser and driver and highly recommends the organization as “a place to hang your volunteer hat.” For Linton volunteering has become a way of life and fulfills an important need. “It gives me an intrinsic satisfaction and makes me feel connected to the community.”

SFCSC runs a number of Adult Day programs at the Grace Centre in Sydenham that are geared to seniors, many of whom are physically frail and socially isolated. Some may have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, and may also be survivors of other illnesses. The programs offer participants a plethora of physical, social and cognitive activities under the direction of trained personnel and staff members, which help to stimulate brain and body function while offering clients a chance to socialize and interact with their peers.

The programming at SFCSC has expanded in recent years from three days a week to five and from a capacity of eight clients per day to 12. Participants in the program are provided with snacks and lunch, and trained PSWs also provide any assistance they might require while in attendance. Referrals to the program are typically made by the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) or by self-referral and are followed up with an in-office visit, after which clients receive a free one trial visit to the program. The cost is $20 per day and transportation can also be provided at an additional cost.

Dave Linton understands that skiing a 51 km marathon is definitely not for everyone, and stressed that it is the daily training leading up to the event that is most important. “It is the daily exercise required to prepare for a marathon and not the marathon itself that is most beneficial. My training equipment is not sophisticated: a chainsaw, an axe, a wood pile plus regular walking with a set of weighted poles…no running, jogging or any other high impact exercises is how I prepare for the race.”

Linton is an incredibly fit 75-year-old and is perhaps not a standard that other seniors can aspire to. He knows this but still he says regular daily exercise is key to overall health. “Daily physical activity changed my life (maybe even saved it on occasions). It is a life-enhancing tool for me and I strongly believe that it can be for others … If we seniors can stay out of nursing homes and long term care facilities, we will not only save tax payer dollars, but will enable ourselves to live healthier, happier, more independent lives in the long term”.

Now back to Linton’s idea about fundraising. He suggests that, given the fact that most seniors usually have everything they need in life, when families are celebrating a milestone event like a birthday or anniversary, they could invite guests to make a donation to the SFCSC in lieu of gifts.

For more information about seniors’ programming at the SFCSC and/or to make a donation call 613-376-6477 or visit www.sfcsc.ca

South Frontenac takes a first look at capital budget

Much of the 2015 South Frontenac capital budget consists of relatively small expenditures and two larger amounts that were set in place several years ago: $5 million in road reconstruction work and $500,000 for the replacement of ageing machinery.

The road construction budget is part of a 10-year road improvement plan, and this year involves $1 million for Yarker Road, $1.125 million for resurfacing various roads, along with work on Washburn Road ($300,000), the Camden/Portland Boundary Road ($600,000), Bobs Lake Road ($400,00), and $500,000 for road rehabilitation in the village of Bellrock, among other projects.

As far as equipment goes the plan is to purchase a tandem dump truck, two backhoes and one half ton truck.

The one item that has the largest effect on the budget is the projected $2.2 million cost of a new fire hall in Perth Road Village.

As the result of all this spending, the projected cash reserves of South Frontenac are set to drop from $16.4 million at the beginning of the year to $13.5 million at the end of 2015.

In terms of spending on recreational facilities, a lot of work is planned for the Point Park in Sydenham, including a $100,000 cost for shoreline restoration and enhancement and another $100,000 to tear up and replace the football field. The football field project, which would require that the field be out of service for a full year, from spring 2015 until spring 2016, will only be done if the Limestone District School Board agrees to pay half of the cost - $50,000.

“We are waiting until we hear from the school board, but the field needs to be rebuilt or it will become unusable,” said Public Works Manager Mark Segsworth.

As staff members went over the capital budget, councilors asked a number of questions for clarification. Debate on the merits of proposed projects will take place at a meeting on January 27. At that time details about the plans for the Perth Road fire hall will be available.

Federal grant for township museum

The federal government has approved a $50,000 grant to help pay some of the costs of making the planned township museum in Hartington a fully accessible facility.

“We applied for $76,0000 and they are giving us $50,000” said Chief Administrative Officer Wayne Orr. The rest of the money has been allocated in the proposed township budget for this year.

Johnston Point Development

The proponents as well as the township planning department made presentations about a proposed 14-unit plan of condominium on a 100 acre parcel of land on a shallow bay of Loughborough Lake off North Shore Road. Most of the required reports (archaeological, hydro-geological, environmental impact, etc.) for the project have been completed and the township planning department as well as the Cataraqui Conservation Authority have expressed support for the project, provided certain conditions are met. The average lot size is 5 acres and water-frontage is over 300 feet for all of the waterfront lots.

However, since some of the lots are near provincially significant wetlands, and Loughborough Lake is already highly populated, a number of members of the public would like to comment on the proposal. An official public meeting has already been held on the proposal, in October of 2014, but that was before the old council.

A subsequent public session has been scheduled for March 2, starting at 6 p.m. At 6:30 Council will convene and listen to presentations from members of the public about the proposal.

Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS)

David Townsend made his annual presentation to Council on behalf of SFCS. He talked of the agency's commitment to serving the elderly and those with financial challenges in the township, and reported that in 2014 SFCS was able to run a modest surplus ($4,500) out of a budget that for the first time topped $1 million.

Townsend said that SFCS would like to build an addition to their headquarters at the Grace Centre on Stagecoach Road, but that they need to get themselves formally aligned with the Ministry of Health in order to access provincial dollars. Townsend concluded by saying that increasing numbers of South Frontenac residents are accessing their programs and they need continued public support to be able to afford to meet the demand.

The impressive multi-media work of close to 200 students at Sydenham High School was included at the biennial Multi-media Festival, which was held at the school on December 11.

Headed up by Dawn Wallace, who has been teaching multi-media communications and technology at the school for the last seven years, the show included displays of student work in video, graphic design, introductory and advanced photography, printmaking, painting, animation, and sound mixing. Some of the highlights of the show included specific projects assigned to the communications technology students in grades 9 through 12, which included colorful mock movie posters, photo collages and entries in three separate student portfolio competitions, which included work in photography and graphic design.

I spoke to fifth-year student, Todd Muller, who entered his portfolio into the grade 11 photography competition. Muller has always loved photography and decided just this year to pursue that passion by enrolling in the introductory photography course that Wallace teaches. His portfolio submission included numerous intriguing, technically proficient and expertly composed photos of subjects that included hyenas at the Toronto Zoo, which were taken during a school photography trip there earlier this year. Muller said photography is a subject that he is seriously considering pursuing after high school at Sheridan College and possibly also at Ryerson. “I really love the creativity involved and the fact that you can be artistic with photography. I especially love staging my photos and for me that is where the artistry and creativity comes into play.”

At the show, Wallace beamed with pride at the students’ work and said that the communications technology and multimedia courses are important because they represent the “language of the day”. “The students are learning the ABCs of visual and audio language and basically all of the fundamentals that they need to know to pursue learning in this field,” she said. She added that she is often surprised and inspired by the work of her students. “I am often blown away by the work they create and often it is they who are teaching me new things, which makes teaching them, for me, a real privilege.” Wallace said a big part of her job is to help students develop their own voice and she said it is tremendously exciting to watch students find the media that best expresses who and what they are. Her words certainly ring true in the mock movie posters that were created by grade 10 students. Colorful, artistic, unique and savvy, one has to look very closely to realize that these posters are not the real thing - though they could easily be.

The Frontenac Flyers Peesee Rep team held a very successful food drive at the Verona Foodland and Trousdale's stores in Sydenham on November 22nd. The team's coach,Brian Brown, came up with the idea of the Flyer's mounting a drive to give back to the community, and the public was happy to oblige. 327.25 pounds of food and $959.11 was donated to the South Frontenac Community Services Food Bank as the result of a real team effort.

Photos: The first picture

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The second one is Owen Deyo, Jacob Snider, Jarod Brown 

Sydenham's annual Santa Claus Parade was the first holiday parade to take place in our coverage area and it attracted a large local crowd to downtown Sydenham on November 29, as well as young families from Kingston, who said that the Sydenham parade is one of their favorites of the holiday season. Numerous floats took to the main street and new this year were the owners of the Frontenac Friesians with a number of their locally bred silky black beauties, each decked out in festive red stockings and ribbons.

Mike Love, head coach of Sydenham's senior boys football team, recalled the team's final game played against Peterborough's Crestwood Mustangs at the Mary Ann Sills Park in Belleville on November 26 for the Senior AA title. The exciting win wrapped up a flawless season for the senior boys, who came out strong from the start against the Mustangs with Golden Eagle Sam Moyse scoring on the second play of the game on a pass from quarterback Dylan Fisher.

That lead spread to 14-0 when the Mustangs fumbled Sydenham's kick. With Sydenham offense in control of the ball, they moved up the turf handily with Brodie Latimer scoring on a four-yard push into the end zone. Sydenham recovered a second fumbled ball by the Mustangs and scored on a pass to Sam Moyse, moving Sydenham well ahead 21-0. Crestwood fought back hard and ran some well planned plays that failed to pan out. Sydenham scored another three points when Mike Bashall kicked a field goal, wrapping up a stellar first quarter and opening up a 24-0 lead for the Golden Eagles. Crestwood changed that fast in the second and turned their game around, scoring a quick consecutive three in a row, their third coming just five seconds before the clock timed out.

At the half the score was 24-21, making the match anyone's game. Love recalled how he and the team felt at that point. “We had the best start any team could want but Crestwood's passing game got us in the second but we managed to gather ourselves together and at half time I told the boys to calm down a bit and we reset our dials to the middle setting again after being up so fast and then coming down so hard.”

Reset they did and opening with the ball at the start of the third, Sydenham moved quickly on a long drive with Brodie Latimer scoring five minutes into the third, moving Sydenham ahead 31-21. Another long drive by the Eagles killed some precious time off the clock in the third and kept the Mustangs 10 points behind at the start of the fourth.

Early in the fourth Sydenham scored a single on a punt and their defense rallied, stopping the Mustangs from moving the ball far enough for a chance. It was five minutes into the fourth that Sydenham's Sam Moyse scored on a pass from Fisher for his third touchdown of the game, which moved the Golden Eagles further ahead 39-21. Bashall's kick put them up one more: 40-21.

The Mustangs demonstrated that they still had something left and with four seconds left in the game scored another touchdown but in the end it was not enough to move them ahead and Sydenham took the win 40-27, wrapping up a perfect season for the Sydenham seniors.

Moyse, Latimer and Fisher proved an unbeatable offensive trio not only in Belleville but all season long, as was kicker Mike Bashall who converted all five touchdowns and two single points on a kick and a punt that cemented the team's decisive win over Crestwood.

Love was proud of all his players. “They worked very, very hard for a long, long time. They came out for every single practice and just got better and better as the season went on.”

Close to 300 fans bundled up and braved the snow and wind to cheer on Sydenham's senior Golden Eagles, who faced off against the Almonte Thunderbolts at the EOSSA A AA football championship game in Kingston, which was held at CaraCo Home Field on November 14.

Both teams were undefeated in their regular seasons and were well matched; they played an exciting back and forth nail biter.

Almonte took a 7 point lead with a touchdown near the end of the first quarter. Then, with just seconds left in the first they fumbled the ball in Sydenham's end zone and Golden Eagle Conner O'Brien recovered it for a touch down. A successful conversion tied the game up 7-7.

There was no scoring in the second quarter until the very end, when with 30 seconds left on the clock Sydenham's Mike Bashal kicked a 25 yard field goal and Sydenham led at the half, 10-7.

Sydenham pushed hard again early in the third and a second three-point field goal by Bashall put the the up 13 - 7. Sydenham drove to the 20 yard line later in third quarter but failed to score, and Almonte responded with three minutes left on a passing touchdown from the 20. After the conversion they took the lead for the firrst time 14-13.

Sydenham’s offense worked hard to get a last chance in the third and with 40 seconds left they gained possession after recovering a fumble and had another chance to move ahead with under 20 seconds left but fell short once again.

Almonte pushed hard early in the fourth in an effort to increase their one point lead but Sydenham's defense held strong and when the Sydenham offense got possession half way through the fourth, a great long pass to Bashall followed by a hand off to O'Brien, Sydenham was once again within scoring distance at which their coach called a time out.

In their next push Sydenham’s Brodie Latimer put the ball across the line and moved the Golden Eagles into first 19-14. A two point conversion attempt missed the mark.

With just six minutes left in the game Sydenham fans went wild as their defense succeeded in shutting Almonte down. Then, with just under four minutes remaining and the snow falling Sydenham’s Brodie Latimer moved the ball for a first down deep in the Almont zone and Sam Moyse scored what looked like the clinching touchdown for Sydenham. However, that proved not to be the case as their was a flag on the play and Sydenham took a ten yard penalty. When they missed a field goal attempt, it was left to the Sydenham defense to keep the Thunderbolts at bay.

It looked like Sydenham might get a final chance to widen their win when Almonte quarterback was sacked but the fumble was picked up by Almonte again.

With a minute left, Sydenham’s Peter Kaiser intercepted a long pass, bringing the Sydenham fans to their feet. Sydenham then ran out the clock, winning 19-14 win, moving on to the National Capital Bowl.

Following the game Almonte coach Chris Spratt said that his boys had a couple of hardships but never quit. “We knew it would be close and though our team doesn't have the big size and numbers, they never quit and showed that we can swing with the big boys”.

Golden Eagles’ coach Mike Love was thrilled with the win and said that although his team still has work prior to the championship game on Saturday, he was really pleased to see his team moving on to it. “It was a really exciting game right up to the end. The boys just hung in there and played their hearts out and were rewarded with a victory,” Love said. The championship game will take place in Belleville on Saturday November 22 against Crestwood of Peterborough.