The Yorkton Regional High School senior football team captured a win on their home field for the first game of playoff action. The score was 34-15.
The Raiders faced the Weyburn Eagles on Saturday afternoon, a team who beat them earlier in the season. But the past eight weeks have resulted in nothing but improvement from the Raiders, so it was as though the Eagles were facing a completely different team than they played back in September.
And that was evident from the start.
The Raiders dominated the first half of play, building the score up to 24-0 at the half.
In the second half, the Eagles pieced together a few plays to get their name on the scoreboard. But it wasn’t enough to surpass the Raiders, who also added points to the board in the half.
A solid game from Yorkton’s defense and another smart game from quarterback Jordin Rusnack ended in victory for the Raiders.
After the win, head coach Roby Sharpe joked that he had warned the Weyburn coach that they were coming for revenge.
“I talked to the coach previous to playing, I said ‘we’ve got a different team, I hope you’re ready,’” he said. “We had some big hits, we were popping on defense. We were a totally different team.”
Sharpe said playing at home brought the intensity level up for his guys.
The win from this weekend will bring the Raiders all the way to Swift Current for semifinals. The Swift Current Colts were the first team the Raiders faced this season, and the Raiders didn’t come out on top. But with their improvement, Sharpe said it will be a different game.
He mentioned Tristan Lockman, the Colts running back who leads the entire league in both rushing and scoring.
“He’s very, very good. But we’re going to work all week in trying to stop him,” said Sharpe. The focus for this week will be to prepare, defensively, for Lockman.
Sharpe said the first loss to Swift Current in September is acting as a motivating factor for his players, and they’re ready to prove how far they’ve come.
