Trey Durham is enjoying the feeling of being a champion.

Durham’s Cape Breton University football team defeated Acadia University 3-1 to claim the Subway Atlantic University Sport Men’s Championship last weekend.

Winning the championship is only part of the story, though, for Durham, who had to overcome a long-term injury to play in the team.

In the championship match, held at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, Cape Breton University faced Acadia University, the top-ranked school in the division.

But on the day of the championship game, it would be a whole different ball game as fortune would smile on Durham’s team.

“[We] scored first in the eleventh minute [and then] Acadia scored in the 52nd minute to tie the game,” Durham said. “[We] scored again in the 62nd minute and made it 3-1 in the 87th minute to seal the victory.”

The 3-1 success was the first time that Durham’s school had won the championship, since he had enrolled as a student there.

Winning the championship was a special achievement for all of his team-mates, but for Durham it was even more poignant. A senior at Cape Breton, Durham has been a member of the school’s team since his freshman year; however, he has not been able to actually play much over the course of those years.

Durham, 22, sustained an ACL injury early on in his freshman year which prevented him from playing much for the team until recently.

“It was a tough road to recovery, but throughout the recovery process, winning this cup kept playing over and over through my mind which pushed me to keep working hard,” he said.

With the chance to play at last, Durham embraced it wholeheartedly, and was on the field as a defensive midfielder when they won the championship.

“[Winning the final] was a dream come true,” Durham said. “[It was] something that I had envisioned before coming to Cape Breton.”

For now, Durham is rightly enjoying this win along with his team-mates but they are not resting on their laurels.

The championship has qualified them to play in the CIS men’s championship which will take place at the University of Guelph this weekend.

Teams from seven other schools will compete in the eight team tournament including a familiar opponent, Acadia.

“We are going into this tournament knowing that it will be a very difficult [one] but we are a quality team, with quality players and we are looking to win it.

And by doing so, it will make us the best [team] in Canada.”