The St. Albert High Skyhawks bid for a provincial football championship began successfully in Peace River last weekend and the pursuit continues Saturday in Stettler.
The fifth-ranked tier III Skyhawks head south to tackle the Wildcats after defeating the Mighty Peace league Pioneers 35-14 in the north regional playoffs. Saturday’s kickoff is 1 p.m. at William E. Hay High School.
The eighth-ranked Wildcats beat the fourth-ranked Cold Lake Royals 20-14 last weekend for their fifth straight win and the eighth in 10 games.
The St. Albert-Stettler winner will challenge the Cochrane Cobras or the Crescent Heights Vikings of Medicine Hat in the Alberta Bowl final Nov. 26 at the University of Lethbridge.
“It’s just amazing that we're one win away from going to provincials. We’ve just got to focus on Stettler and then we can go party it up,” Grade 12 centre Peter Hryhorchuk said at practice in Monday’s snowstorm at St. Albert Catholic High School.
“We’re real pumped to play Stettler. Apparently they’re a good team and they’ve got a good running back. We’re going to see how it goes and hopefully we’ll stop them,” said Grade 12 linebacker Landon Wenger.
“We’re the only team left in St. Albert still playing football and that’s a good thing,” Wenger said.
This is the first year for the Skyhawks in the tier III playoffs for schools with enrolments between 450 and 749 students. Their win in Peace River improved their record to 4-6.
“They’re smaller schools. You don’t know any of them. You’ve never heard of their kids,” Wenger said. “It’s a little different but it’s still football.”
The Skyhawks made their tier III debt against the historically tough Pioneers. The provincial finalists the last two years were 6-2 as the Mighty Peace finalists.
“It was gut check time for us,” Wenger said. “We stepped it up big time. Our offence played good and so did our defence. It was a great game and it was very exciting to win it.”
After the Pioneers scored early with a long run, the Skyhawks replied with three touchdown passes from Keith Zyla to Brendan Thera-Plamondon.
“At first we thought we were down and out of it and then we just had little talks in the huddle. We got the offence motivated, kept our heads in the game and we were able to come straight back and take the victory,” Hryhorchuk said. “It doesn’t matter who scores first, it just matters who succeeds at the end.”
Zyla’s three TD passes were all over 50 yards with the longest a 65-yard bomb that the speedy Thera-Plamondon hauled in.
“When Thera caught his third touchdown, I felt we really finished it right there,” Wenger said.
The Pioneers scored again to make it 21-14, but that was as close as they got.
“Our coaches were good on us. They told us not to get down and we just played our hearts out,” Wenger said.
In the second half the offensive line, led by Hryhorchuk and Nigel MacGregor, opened big holes in the middle of the Pioneers’ defence for running backs Matti Thurlin and Nathan Pytel to pound the ball on long drives.
The punishing ground game resulted in TD runs by Thurlin and short-yardage specialist, Tyler Demers.
On defence the Skyhawks snuffed out drive after drive to shut out the Pioneers in the second half.
A third-down Pioneers play deep in Skyhawks’ territory ended with a superb play by defensive back Reysan Carrasca who sacked the quarterback for a loss on an attempted bootleg.
Late in the game, defensive back Andre Leduc stopped another drive with an interception that he returned to the Peace River 20-yard-line.
Demers, Tarren Luck, Brad Hoddinott, Eric Lebreque and Riley Morin also played instrumental roles in keeping the Pioneers out of the end zone.
The only tier III team in the Metro Edmonton league’s competitive Carr Conference never questioned its ability to win the big game.
“Doubts? Not at all. During our week off [before the game] we prepared like crazy and just gave it our all,” said Hryhorchuk. “It was teamwork, hard effort, our plays and execution that did it for us.”
The last Skyhawks’ team to compete in the provincial playoffs was the 2000 tier I north finalist.
“I’m a Skyhawk at heart and I really believe we can do something special as a team this year,” said Wenger.
