Johnny Bright Park – The Paul Kane Blues are one win away from an historic championship in high school football.
The first-year junior team will challenge the Bev Facey Falcons for premier conference honours Thursday at Foote Field. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m. and admission is $5.
The last St. Albert team to celebrate a premier title was the Hawks in 2006.
“It would be awesome for us to bring home a win,” said Grade 10 quarterback Cory Knott after the Blues beat the Beaumont Bandits 35-7 in Wednesday’s semifinal.
The Blues and Facey finished first in their respective pools and both teams are 4-0 with one game to go.
“We haven’t seen much of Bev Facey. We played them in a jamboree a couple of months ago and they seem pretty strong. They’ve got good running backs and we’ve got to shut them down,” Knott said. “It’s going to be tough. We’ve got to come out as hard as we can.”
Paul Kane’s line-up of graduating bantams, football newbies and a sprinkling of juniors from last year’s St. Albert Hawks is 6-1 overall.
“We’ve got a lot of good athletes on our team and it’s all starting to click,” Knott said. “Everyone is working as hard as they can and putting in a good effort.”
In their playoff debut in the rain, the Blues overcame an early 7-0 deficit with five touchdowns against a Beaumont team ranked second in pool B at 2-1.
“It was a tough game. We came out a little light thinking that it was going to be an easy game but as soon as we started going we realized it wasn’t going to be easy at all,” Knott said. “Once our guys started blowing through them with hard work we came out with the win.”
The Blues led by seven at halftime and by 14 after three quarters.
“Defence played a really good game. They had a good running back but we managed to shut him down,” Knott said. “On offence we managed to put together some good drives.”
The Bandits gave the Blues a brief scare by opening the scoring with a three-yard TD in the last minute of the first quarter. The drive started at the Beaumont 45 after the Blues fumbled the ball away. Two plays earlier, Thompson Clark was credit with a fumble recovery at the Paul Kane 49.
On the first play in the second quarter, Greg Fleming darted outside for a 43-yard major.
Fleming also scored the go-ahead TD from the four-yard line with 70 seconds left in the half. Graham Loerke’s fumble recovery at the Paul Kane 26 put the wheels in motion for Fleming and fullback Jake Lee to rack up the yards behind a stout offensive line. The backfield duo wore down Beaumont’s defence en route to the endzone.
“They did amazing. They really pushed through hard and they didn’t back down from anything,” said Knott.
His 19-yard scamper on second and five to the Beaumont 36 was another key play leading up to Fleming’s second TD.
In the third quarter, after Patrick Turnbull fell on a loose ball at the Beaumont 45, the teams exchanged several punts as the rain intensified. Before the quarter ended, Tyler Turner fielded a ball and turned the corner for a 75-yard TD.
“That punt return was pretty good. It was insurance for us. It really gave us the confidence to keep going hard,” said Knott.
The former bantam St. Albert 49er broke free for a 15-yard TD with 9:18 to play after the Blues snuffed out a fake punt in Beaumont territory. He also teamed up with Jonathan Pharis for a 21-yard TD strike with 5:57 remaining.
Isaac Kong converted all five TDs.
“It feels good to win but we’ve still got lots of hard work to do in practice before the final,” said Knott, 15.
