The St. Albert High Skyhawks put the past behind them while focusing on the future.
Tuesday’s 26-17 victory against the Strathcona Lords at Larry Olexiuk Field put the Skyhawks back on track toward a winning season after losing by three points to the Paul Kane Blues.
“We played a fantastic game. Everybody executed really well,” Justin Stoneham, a Grade 11 Skyhawk. “We were pretty hungry after taking that loss against PK. We really wanted to go out and show that we’re not done yet. We’re ready to go out there and win a championship.”
It was a quick turnaround for the Skyhawks after Friday’s rivalry game in pool A of the division two Miles/division three Gilfillan conference.
“It was a good job by the kids. They did good work with a short schedule and we’ve got one more on Friday (against the O’Leary Spartans),” said Sam Johnson, head coach of the fifth-ranked Tier III (450 to 749 students) team in the province. “It’s really tough when you’ve only got basically two days to get ready for somebody and now we’ve only got another two days before we get ready so we’ll forget about this one and get after the next one.”
The 17-14 upset by Paul Kane was the main post-game topic of conversation as Johnson was questioned over the outcome.
“You know what? We didn’t deserve the win. We still felt we were the better team, but all the credit in the world to them. They won the ball game and we’re ready to move on,” Johnson said. “We watched our film, we learned what we could and just forgot what happened and got to work on the next one.”
Johnson agreed with the suggestion the Skyhawks were guilty of overconfidence against Paul Kane (2-0), unranked in Tier II (750 to 1,249 students).
“One hundred per cent. The guys start reading the press clippings and the social media, and they start to believe how good everybody says they are and that’s the reason why you’ve got to play high school football. You’ve got to show up and play, and we never really showed up until it was late in the ball game,” Johnson said.
The Skyhawks trailed 10-0 after the first quarter, 10-7 at halftime and 17-7 after three quarters before rallying late in the game on Hunter Hoffman’s 16-yard touchdown reception and the conversion by Addison Ross with 32.2 seconds remaining.
Both teams also racked up a ton of penalties with several infractions at inopportune times, including a punt return TD by Paul Kane in the second quarter that was wiped out and Hoffman’s first-down reception that was called back when it looked like the Skyhawks were within field-goal range for the game-tying points after the successful on-side kick following Hoffman’s TD.
“We told our guys that’s maybe the worst exhibition of Skyhawks’ football in a long, long time,” Johnson said. “But we were still there at the end and we could’ve won the ball game so you stress the positives and you forget about (the loss), and you move on and our focus right now is 100 per cent on O’Leary on Friday.”
The score against O’Leary (1-1-1) at Fuhr Sports Park was unavailable at press time.
The Skyhawks – 8-3 last year as finalists in the Miles and Tier III provincial north playoffs and one of the wins was 29-0 against Paul Kane – took the loss to heart.
“It was a wakeup call. A loss isn’t always good and you always want to bounce back from something like that,” Stoneham said. “That definitely wasn’t us against Paul Kane.”
The Skyhawks (2-1) took their frustrations out on the Lords (0-2-1), a Tier I (1,250-plus students) team that finished 2-4 in the division one Carr conference last year after their undefeated 2017 season in the Miles.
The Lords were also coming off the 30-15 loss to the second-year Sturgeon Spirits (2-1), the 2018 Gilfillan finalists who are currently ranked seventh in Tier III.
Sturgeon also knocked off O’Leary 25-7 Tuesday.
On second down on the first offensive series by the Lords, Jackson Ganton stepped in front of a pass around the 45 of the Skyhawks and raced untouched into the endzone.
Early in the second quarter, the Lords reached pay dirt with a 40-yard grab down the sideline. The two-point conversion run was snuffed out.
After the kickoff, the Skyhawks marched the ball from their 44 as Ganton’s catch and run on a crossing route resulted in a first down at the Lords’ 41. Three plays later on third and six, quarterback Ewan Vanderheide flipped the ball to Ganton in the backfield and the Grade 12 standout cranked out his second TD of the half.
After the Lords booted a 28-yard field goal with 3:35 left until the break, the Skyhawks drove the field from their 35 as Stoneham, Hoffman and Davis Girard generated first downs before the Lords were flagged for pass interference on Hoffman at the 17. On the next play, Stoneham streaked into the endzone with 1:18 to go and the convert by Ross was blocked as the Skyhawks led 20-9.
The last TD by the Skyhawks was Vanderheide punching the ball in from the one with 7:09 left in the third quarter to cap off a 49-yard drive highlighted by first-down efforts from Hoffman’s running abilities and Ganton’s sure-handed catch. The two-point conversion pass was unsuccessful.
The Lords closed out the contest with a short TD run and two-point conversion with 1:55 to play.
Turnovers in the second half included Jared Granoski's fumble recovery for the Skyhawks after a heavy hit on the QB and Stoneham’s interception.
As for what the difference was between beating the Lords and losing to Paul Kane, “A little bit was blocking, but basically all of us weren’t executing and, as for myself, I wasn’t executing either. It just wasn’t our game,” said Stoneham, 16, a top-notch two-way slotback/cornerback who is also the backup QB.
Against Paul Kane, Stoneham replaced Vanderheide behind centre after the first quarter and, late in the first half, was picked off twice in the endzone.
Stoneham, who pulled off some strong runs for quality yardage while filling in at QB, was also intercepted on what turned out to be the second-last play of the match, but a penalty to Paul Kane gave the Skyhawks another chance to air the ball out and the attempt ended with intense pressure by the defence to thwart the opportunity.
Against the Lords, Vanderheide looked pretty good before taking a breather late in the match as Stoneham guided the offence.
“Ewan’s had some injury issues that he’s working through. He’s getting some therapy and stuff like that. He’s coming around. He had a better game this week and hopefully on Friday he has even a better one,” Johnson said of his Grade 12 starting QB.
The second-last pool A game for the Skyhawks is against the McNally Tigers (1-1) Friday at 7:30 p.m. in St. Albert.
