The Okanagan Sun gained a berth into the BC Football Conference Final and will compete for the Cullen Cup after a 33-0 victory over the Vancouver Island Raiders in the BCFC Semi-Final on Saturday afternoon at the Apple Bowl.
Dominic Britton led the offense on Saturday, completing 16 of his 20 passes on the afternoon for 317 yards and a pair of touchdown passes. The Sun were dealt an early blow in the game as BCFC leading rusher Malcolm Miller was sidelined in the opening quarter of play after carried just two rushes for six yards in the game. Miller was taken out of the game with Kaiden Banfield replacing him in the backfield for the remainder of the game.
The Sun began play with a bang out of the gate as Matthew Sibley took the opening kick-off all the way to the end zone for an 88-yard touchdown rush that gave the Sun an early advantage off the first play of the game and the second time Sibley has returned a kick-off for a touchdown going back to the regular season.
Britton tallied his first touchdown pass of the afternoon in the second quarter with a familiar connection in spotting Mike O’Shea for a 24-yard touchdown grab to give the Sun the lead by a pair of touchdowns.
The offences for both teams sputtered through most of the second and third quarters of the game with the Sun holding an 18-0 advantage heading into the 4th quarter where the Sun exploded offensively while the defence remained stingy and didn’t allow the Raiders anything to work on, finishing the game with just over 200 yards of offence gained.
Britton took in a one-yard quarterback sneak after engineering a four-play, 60-yard drive to give the Sun a big lead before finding Sibley for a 37-yard TD strike that concluded the scoring for the Sun offence.
Raiders quarterback Jake Laberge, who came into the game as the second leading passer in the BCFC, behind Britton, was scrambling for much of the day, completing just 9 of the 28 passes he threw in the game for just 79 yards as the Sun stymied his offence all afternoon long.
The Sun emerged with a 33-0 victory and clinched a berth into the Cullen Cup Final where they will meet their longstanding rival in the Langley Rams, who earned their way to the Final with a 39-8 win over the Valley Huskers.
The two teams split their season series, combining for a 13-13 score line against one another as Langley won the opening meeting between the teams in a darkness-shortened 7-0 triumph before the Sun won the final matchup of the regular season in a 13-7 win at the Apple Bowl. The Cullen Cup Final will be played in Langley as the game time and date is to be determined.