Warriors’ OFSAA boys’ soccer gold for each other and for Pop

They are the champions: The Woodstock St. Mary’s Warriors boys’ soccer team players and coaches celebrate their OFSAA AA championship in the school parking lot, moments after getting off the bus from the Ottawa-based provincial championship. (Jeff Tribe Photo)

Jeff Tribe 

Echo Correspondent

The Woodstock St. Mary’s Warriors senior boys’ soccer team’s focus did not waver from their first practice until the moment they walked off the team bus in the home parking lot late the evening of June 7, Ontario Federation of Secondary School Athletics (OFSAA) AA championship banner in hand, gold medals around their necks.

“Before every game, we said ‘You are playing for one another and you are playing for ‘Pop’,’ (co-coach Valerie Popovich),” summed up co-coach Vanessa Pye. “And that’s what they did.”

“It’s just surreal,” added Popovich. “OFSAA is… the gold is bonus. We just wanted to get there, we knew that and that we maybe had a shot.

“They just played at another level we hadn’t seen before.”

“It’s an amazing experience,” agreed co-captain Maxwell Odumodu, who had game-winning goals in both the quarter and semi-final games. “It’s just the perfect way it could have gone. 

“Exactly what we could have hoped for and more.”

The Warriors had to go through the defending OFSAA AA champion Courtice Holy Trinity Catholic High School Titans in the gold medal match.

“Just right off the bat, they wanted it,” said Pye of her team’s opening five minutes. “As a coach, you’re like, ‘OK.’”

The Titans were a very strong team technically, she credited.

“But we had way more grit, we wanted it more. You could see it in the boys, every single one of them.”

St. Mary’s built an early 3-0 lead capped by a Noah Allard tap-in off a Tommy Walker corner kick.

“At the time, it felt like it was nothing,” smiled Allard. “But eventually…”

There are very few ‘gimmies’ at a provincial championship, let alone in the final and the game was far from done. The Titans mounted a furious, late comeback, spurred by the energy that sometimes comes with a ten-member roster, closing the score to 3-2 with roughly five minutes to go.

“I kept looking at my watch,” admitted Pye, who counter-intuitively felt a familiar calmness descend at that point, her squad rediscovering its structure and game plan at crunch time to close out the gold-medal victory. “They started doing all the things they knew they should.”

The Warriors began their OFSAA run on June 5 in Ottawa, opening round-robin play with a solid 4-1 win over Oakville King’s Christian College.

“They had four hours of sleep, woke up and knew what they needed to do,” said Pye.

The coaching staff felt St. Mary’s was the better team in their second outing against Bolton St. Michael’s, but suffered their first loss of the season, 2-0. Disappointing on one level, the blemish did reiterate that nothing would come for free, providing an opportunity to refocus and begin another winning streak.

A welcoming committee in the Woodstock St. Mary’s CHS parking lot greets the 2025 OFSAA AA boys soccer champions upon their return from Ottawa, co-captains Tommy Walker (carrying the banner) and Max Odumodu leading the team off the bus. (Jeff Tribe Photo)

“And obviously we did that,” said Pye, of a St. Mary’s team which came out flying the following morning at 8 a.m., downing Toronto Bishop Marraco 8-0. “They stepped up.”

Ten minutes prior to the Warriors’ final pool game, they confirmed they would advance to the quarterfinals with nine points, allowing the coaching staff to engage its bench strength more fully through a 2-0 win over Belleville Centennial Secondary.

“Everybody had a part of it,” said Pye. “Which was important, because everybody contributed.”

Finishing second in Pool B, the Warriors faced the Ottawa L’École Secondaire Publique Louis Riel Rebelles in the quarterfinals. They were an undefeated side coming out of Pool A with 12 points.

“They were seeded second, but I would say they were probably the best team there… other than us,” said Pye. “That game was 100 per cent heart. We put it all out there.”

Regulation time ended without a goal, leading to two ten-minute, full-time overtime periods.

In the first minute of the first, a high ball went over the top of the defence, said Odumodu, who, following a missed head ball clearing attempt, found himself with the chance the Warriors needed.

“And I just put it away.”

“And so, 19 minutes of keep playing hard and that’s what they did,” said Pye of a 1-0 final.

The Warriors faced the Windsor Catholic Central High Comets in semi-final play, a squad which had not given up a goal in its previous five outings. Pye felt the Warriors dominated first-half play but found themselves down a goal. Crucially, St. Mary’s responded in the opening half’s final minute, a confidence-boosting tally off a corner kick.

“At halftime, they kept saying, we can beat this team,” said Pye.

Odumodu scored the game-winner with around ten minutes remaining in regulation, missing on his first try of a cross which slipped through, running around the goalie for a second chance.

“Buried it, bottom left, inside the post.”

Beyond the obvious, there were several extremely satisfying elements to the Warriors OFSAA AA championship, beginning with the fact the team also received the tournament’s most sportsmanlike award. 

“That means almost as much,” said Popovich.

The Warriors games were live streamed to an appreciative audience as cell phones coordinated a welcome committee in the parking lot. It featured parents, friends and an extremely proud principal Tony Doria, flowers for the coaches, celebratory sparklers and congratulatory cheers, and Queen’s We Are The Champions cued up in accompaniment.

Popovich also pointed to long-time educator, coach and athletic coordinator Pat Sloan, capping a 33-year career with an OFSAA gold he contributed to via three guest pep talks, the key theme being respect.

“And they really responded,” credited Popovich.

The victory also celebrated a shared return to OFSAA for Popovich and Pye. They had qualified two decades-plus previously, with Pop coaching Pye at the time.

It’s hard to sum up the experience of a lifetime in a game, a moment or even cumulatively across a season. 

It all began said Pye, with last year’s loss in the Western Ontario Secondary School Athletics Association AA championship game.

“We all said, next year we are going to go to OFSAA,” she recalled of a Warriors unit that from day one, came to all the practices, supported each other and built success around ‘team.’ “Everything they did was toward that goal.”

That team had faith added Popovich, faith in their process, faith in each other, and perhaps, a belief fate was taking a hand. She pointed to this year’s WOSSAA AA semi-final, the Warriors finishing extra time down two players and their starting goalie unable to continue, trailing 2-0 in penalty kicks before making a remarkable comeback in a game there’s no way they should have won.

“From that point on, it’s like kind of a calm, right?”

“It felt like it was meant to be, honestly,” summed up co-captain Tommy Walker. 

From the beginning he said, there was a belief they could do it, a belief built by playing for each other and their coaches, and passion for the game, celebrated in each goal, each game of the season.

“So much passion,” Walker concluded.