TWO North Shore football teams are heading to provincial quarterfinals after scoring opening round playoff wins on the weekend.
At the AAA level the West Vancouver Highlanders ran away with a 31-13 win over Kelowna's Rutland VooDoos Saturday at BC Place while in AA the Windsor Dukes traveled to Victoria's Goudy Field Friday to score a 21-14 win over Belmont.
West Vancouver quarterback Johnny Franklin continued his stellar play, throwing three touchdown passes and rushing for another in the Highlanders' win. His day also included a 99-yard touchdown run that was called back on a penalty.
James Oswald opened the scoring with a six-yard touchdown run before Franklin went to work, throwing touchdown passes to Tommy Lee, Marcus Schwandner and Declan Mcgovern. Franklin finished with 172 yards rushing and 129 yards passing.
The win earned the Highlanders a date with the No. 1-ranked W.J. Mouat Hawks from Abbotsford. The two teams met to open the regular season Sept. 28 with Mouat scoring a 47-33 win. They'll meet again Friday with a berth in the provincial semifinals on the line. Game time is 8 p.m. Friday at UBC's Thunderbird Stadium.
Meanwhile the Windsor Dukes kept up their late-season surge, winning their fifth straight game en route to the AA quarterfinals.
Quarterback Ty Marshall completed 12 of 14 passes for 158 yards, including a touchdown strike to Rodney Gilbert. Marshall also did some damage on the ground, rushing nine times for 69 yards and a touchdown while running back Rudy Uhl also had nine carries and picked up 59 yards and a touchdown.
Devin Perri led the defence with nine tackles and a sack while Aden Perri picked up eight tackles and a sack.
The Dukes will now take on Easter Conference winners Mission secondary Saturday starting at 5: 30 p.m. at Thunderbird Stadium.
Carson Graham also made a playoff appearance on Friday but fell 46-10 to the powerful South Delta Sun Devils, the No. 1ranked team at the AA level.
