The Paul Kane Blues hit all the right notes with fanfare in last week’s lid-lifter in metro Edmonton football.
The 57-0 mauling of the McNally Tigers at Emerald Hills signalled the start of another winning season for Paul Kane in the division two Miles conference.
“It’s a very important win. We want to keep Paul Kane going with the winning streak we’ve been having in the past,” said Rylan Baerg, a returnee from last year’s 7-3 team that lost the Miles conference final 37-0 to the Strathcona Lords and Tier II north semifinal 44-0 to the host St. Joseph Celtics of Grande Prairie.
“Those were rough blowouts for us but we’ve got a good team this year, we’ve just got to focus in practice and do what we do best and that’s be good on defence and good on offence,” added Baerg, a Grade 12 bulldog at centre and linebacker who also kicks for points. “We have a lot of good Grade 10s coming up. Marshall (Missins) is one of them. Best lineman I’ve seen come onto the team for a starter. Jacob King, our quarterback, is very fit. He’s good for running and passing. I’m excited to see what he has going into the season.
“We also have a whole bunch of other players, too, that we’re just excited to kick off the season with.”
Paul Kane ran the ball down McNally’s throat for 375 yards, according to the team’s statistician, as a handful of players rushed for touchdowns.
King, a Grade 10 QB starter, was a speeding bullet on two long-distance runs that resulted in one TD and the other ended around the one-yard line.
“The boys just blocked well,” said head coach Rob Strecker of the run-wild Blues. “A lot of credit goes to Konor (Campbell) and Jacob, just seeing the reads and then hitting that hole and hitting it hard, especially for a guy like Konor who has never played football before. It’s something we’ve been working with him in practice and he’s just starting to get the hang of it. We’ve told him as soon as you see daylight hit that hole, put your head down and go hard and he was doing that. He has very good speed. He runs in track and field so I know he has the wheels and now we’re putting those wheels to use.”
Ironically, the historically pass-happy Paul Kane offence attempted only seven passes and three were completions, including a TD reception by Ethan Wedman.
“I was trying some things out and they were working and I figured why change. Get them to stop us before we’re going to change something,” Strecker said. “Sure, we only threw the ball seven times but part of that had to do with it being running time in the second half so we didn’t have as much time to do some things. We were also really working hard to get everyone in the game, get all my running backs in there, and I didn’t want to run the score up even though it sounds like we did. I just wanted to make sure we got everybody lots of touches.
“I was actually shocked at the end of the game when we realized we only threw the ball seven times. We’ll try to throw the ball more this week.”
Friday’s contest against the O’Leary Spartans kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at Larry Olexiuk Field.
“We’re really excited to get this season going,” Baerg said. “After that game (against McNally) we were chanting on the bus and singing. We were happy. It was a good feeling.”
Paul Kane “did exactly what we want to do,” according to Baerg, 17.
“It was a really good game for our offence and defence,” Baerg said. “We have a very strong defence this year, especially for stopping the run and passes. Lots of good fit players there.
“We also have very good blockers this year. We’ve got lots of big men on the line so we’re hoping we have a good run game and good passing game.
“It’s just a great overall team this year.”
In week two of the Football Alberta Tier II (750 to 1,249 students) rankings, Paul Kane is listed eighth and the division one Carr conference Austin O’Brien Crusaders are fifth as the only two metro Edmonton teams in the top 10.
Last year marked the third Miles conference final for Paul Kane in five years, highlighted by the undefeated 2013 and 2014 championships, after going 1-6-1 in the 2016 Carr conference and the year before the Blues were Carr finalists.
Paul Kane is also 1-5 in five consecutive years in the provincial playdowns since the team’s inaugural 2011 season and is 1-3 against the Celtics.
