The Tier III north final was over in a blink of an eye for the St. Albert High Skyhawks.
Saturday’s provincial qualifier slipped away from Skyhawks while down by 11 points in the opening 5:02 minutes and by 17 after the third safety of the first half in the 38-18 runaway by the Holy Rosary Raiders at Larry Olexiuk Field.
“We got some rough field position and they got a few points on the board early,” said quarterback Kyle Torok-Both, who ran the ball into the end zone from the three with no time on the clock to end the first half as the Skyhawks trailed 17-6. “That hole in the beginning was a little rough but we tried to fight out of it.”
The Raiders drove the second half kickoff 74 yards to make it 24-6 and in the fourth quarter capitalized on a turnover off a punt for a 10-yard TD for a commanding 31-6 advantage with 9:59 to play.
“They’re a good team and they kept putting points on the board,” Torok-Both said.
The opening kickoff by the Raiders pinned the Skyhawks at their five, resulting in the first safety in punt formation.
The Raiders elected to have the Skyhawks kick off instead of scrimmaging at the 35 and pounded the ball 74 yards for the team’s only TD of the half.
After the kickoff, the Skyhawks huddled up around the five, went two and out and gave up the second safety in punt formation as the Raiders led 11-0 with 6:58 left in the quarter.
“We were fortunate on the opening kickoff and kind of rolled from there,” said Vince Orieux, head coach of the Raiders. “Any time you’re on the road you’ve got to hope to try and get a lead early so we got the kickoff and it wasn’t the best kick, but it skipped on the frozen turf and kind of buried them done there. They went two and out and they gave us two so right away you’re on the board at 2-0. Then they’ve got to kick off from their own 35 and we were able to go down and score a touchdown and then their next possession is another two and out and right away you’re up 11-0. You’re riding a little bit of momentum and you can relax a little bit and do your thing.”
The third time on offence, the Skyhawks huddled up near midfield and got as far as the 16, but on third and 12 a pass was broken up in the end zone. The Raiders took over possession at their 18 and marched the ball with a strong running attack before settling for a 32-yard field goal to lead by 14 with 32 seconds to go in the quarter.
The Raiders added a single point off a missed field goal from around the 20 with 8:05 remaining until halftime and the third safety in punt formation with the ball at the 13 put the Skyhawks down by 17 with 2:51 left.
The Skyhawks were between a rock and a hard place with no choice but to give up the safeties.
“It’s a play that you’ve got to make in order to stay in the ball game because if you give up two or three touchdowns in that situation the game is over,” said Sam Johnson, head coach of the Skyhawks.
It was a done deal after the Raiders drove the second half kickoff 74 yards to make it 24-6 and early in the fourth quarter cashed in a turnover off a punt as the ball was recovered at the 21 and a few plays later scored from the 10 with 9:59 remaining.
“We gave them about 13 points,” Johnson said of the three safeties and the TD off the snafu on the punt return.
As the game wound down, the Skyhawks made the score look respectable with Matt Swecera’s nine-yard TD reception with 5:55 to go and Justin Stoneham’s one-yard effort with 38 seconds on the clock.
“We changed what we do offensively partly because we wanted to give them a new look and partly because of personnel issues that we’ve been having and we just couldn’t get rolling,” Johnson said. “But we did get clicking later on in the game. We put up three touchdowns on these guys and none of them flukes. It was all hard work by them.”
The first TD for the Skyhawks featured pass completions to Stoneham, Swecera and Hunter Hoffman to put the ball at the nine. A pass interference flag on the Raiders as time expired gave the Skyhawks another crack at the end zone and Torok-Both was able to cross the goal line.
The second TD was set up by a couple of unnecessary roughness flags against the Raiders.
The last TD stemmed from a pass interference call on the Raiders in the end zone.
“We played hard all the way to the end with a never quit attitude,” said Torok-Both, who took a physical beating scrambling with the ball as the Raiders were flagged multiple times with excessive force against the QB.
The Skyhawks were no angels either and with the game out of reach some extracurricular activity resulted in the Raiders advancing the ball to the one via penalties and the ensuing TD made it 38-12 with 2:41 to play.
“It was a spirited game,” Orieux said. “I’m proud of the kids’ effort. We had to battle today.”
The loss was the fourth in a row for the Skyhawks against the Lloydminster-based Raiders with a trip to the Alberta Bowl Tier III (450 to 749 students) championship up for grabs.
The Skyhawks also fell 28-0 in 2015 at Lloydminster, 61-0 in 2016 at Clarke Stadium and 35-10 last year in the Border City.
“I take them all to heart. It’s hard for me. It might be a month and a half before I get over this one, too, but I've been very, very proud of our boys this year with all the adversity we've gone through,” Johnson said. “I’m not disappointed in their effort or what they accomplished, I’m disappointed that we don’t get to continue this journey together this year.
“We’re going to mourn this a little bit and then we're going to move on and get better.”
So, why have the Raiders been successful?
“I don’t think it’s a secret. It's not a magic formula. It’s putting the kids in the right spots. We ask a lot of them. We ask them to put a lot of time in the weight room and studying film,” said Orieux of the 2018 Wheatland finalists after four straight championship league seasons. “We’ve got a good minor football program that prepares the kids starting in peewee and I know most communities have that, but with the last few years we've been blessed with some really good kids that are interested in learning and getting better so from a coaching standpoint they kind of make our job pretty easy. We can be creative, we can be conservative, we can do whatever we want with them and they seem to respond. It’s just a real good group.
"We’ve got a lot of seniors this year, I think it's 15, but we graduated 14 kids last year, too. We have 14 or 15 in every grade so every year you lose a whole bunch, but you’ve always got that core of 28, 30 kids coming back and that’s been key for us, too. Having that big core of over a dozen in every grade helps with the continuity and bringing in systems and just that leadership in general.”
The No. 2-ranked Raiders – 11-2 and both losses were against the Lloydminster Barons in the Wheatland league – will now battle the No. 1-ranked Cochrane Cobras (9-1) in Saturday’s provincial final in Fort McMurray.
Cochrane has emerged victorious the last three years against the Raiders and the fourth championship in five years for the Cobras was 2012 against the Skyhawks.
“If there was a blueprint to build and grow and develop a high school football team Cochrane is the one everybody would want to follow and I know we’ve made changes within our program to try and emulate some of the things they do. We have all kinds of respect for Cochrane," Orieux said.
“We feel if you’re going to be a true Tier III provincial champion you have to go through Cochrane so we're going to get another opportunity and we'll see what we can do. They’re well coached, got some of the best coaches in the province and they’ve got some of the best athletes in the province ... Their kids are all over Canada in different programs so they do a heck of a job coaching and their kids buy in.
“They’re the benchmark that everybody wants to get to and we're excited to get another opportunity at them.”
The Skyhawks – 8-3 as the division two Miles conference finalists in the metro Edmonton league, including an 8-0 home-field record before the loss in the north final – graduate only four players.
“We’ve got some holes to fill but we'll be back to fight another day,” Johnson said. “Lots of young guys played lots of valuable minutes for us this year so the future looks bright.”
Torok-Both, 17 was saddened to see the season end sooner than expected for arguably the best football team at St. Albert Catholic High School since 2012. Despite injuries to some prime-time players leading up to the playoffs, including team MVP and Grade 11 slotback/defensive back Jackson Ganton, the Skyhawks competed in their first Miles conference final since 2015 and the north final was the sixth in seven Tier III playoffs since 2011.
“With all the ups and downs it’s crazy how far we’ve come. It’s awesome to see these guys grow every day, work hard and get better,” said Torok-Both, a valiant performer with the absence midway through the season of last year’s QB starter, Ewan Vanderheide, and not only did the Grade 12 Skyhawk take a pounding at times trying to make plays, he also lined up at cornerback.
“It’s disappointing it’s over. It’s my last season and you want to finish with a bang with a championship but they’re my brothers so it’s all good.”
