It’s been a long wait for the YRHS Sr. Raider football team, 315 days in fact, since they last stepped foot on a football field for a Moose Jaw High School Football League game before meeting the Swift Current Colts Saturday afternoon at Century Field.
The last time they were on a football field for a league game prior to Saturday’s season opener against the Colts was back on November 1, 2014, when the Raiders were unceremoniously dropped in the MJHSFL Championship by the A.E. Peacock Tornadoes, who then went on to their second consecutive SHSAA 3-A 12-Man Provincial title.
However it wasn’t the ghosts of the 2014 championship final that haunted the Raiders in the very low scoring first half. Instead it was the penalties and misplays that allowed the Swift Current Colts to hang around for much of the game. “We come out and, I don’t want to say we looked rusty, but we just couldn’t execute,” offered YRHS head coach Roby Sharpe after the game. “Potentially we could have, should have, would have, been up 21 points after the first quarter if it wasn’t for penalties and dropped balls and stuff like that.”
Instead the Raiders led by just four points – a pair of two point safeties – until late in the second quarter when running back Brody Popowich finally crossed the goal-line for the Raiders’ first touchdown of the 2015 season on a three yard plunge. “Popowich, he’s like a little water beetle out there when he gets the ball. He really runs hard,” suggested Sharpe, adding that the first touchdown of a season is always good. “It’s nice to get that first one out of the way. It probably should have happened earlier in the game, but luckily our defence held the fort for us all game.”
The defence was indeed the strongest part of the game for the Raiders Saturday afternoon, as time after time the Regional front seven hammered Swift Current quarterback Dalton Christiansen into the ground. “That quarterback, we clapped him off when he got injured down here in our end because that kid is one tough kid. Our defence was teeing off on him,” said Sharpe. “That is one of the tougher kids that we have ever come across. He took a licking and just kept coming back and played well.
“You have to give him credit where credit is due because he’s a really tough player, but our defence made sure their offence couldn’t do much.”
The only thing the Swift Current offence could do was score one touchdown on a Christiansen passing play midway thru the third quarter to cut the Raider lead to three at 11-8.
However a pair of Raider touchdowns late in the fourth quarter - a Matthew Mandziuk rushing touchdown and an eight yard touchdown pass from Raider quarterback Nick Payne to running back Caleb Bymak - made sure that the Raiders would pick up their first win of the 2015 season.
Quarterback Nick Payne completed 16-of-21 passes for 189 yards and one touchdown, while the Raider secondary came up with three interceptions, one each by Matthew Balysky, Skylar Soldat and Ben Koroluk.
Running back/defensive end/linebacker Caleb Bymak also had a big game on both sides of the ball. Bymak ran for 70 yards on just five carries and scored one touchdown on a passing play while causing all sorts of havoc in the Colt backfield, relentlessly hounding Christiansen all game long. “When he gets the ball it doesn’t really look like he’s running but he’s pulling away from guys,” mentioned the YRHS head coach on Bymak. “He’s a leader on the team and he worked his butt off all game long and when he hits someone on defence, you can bet they feel it.”
Next action
The next action for the YRHS Sr. Raiders (1-0) will be this Friday when they travel to Estevan to take on the Estevan Elecs (0-2). Kickoff is set for 4:00pm.
Estevan dropped both of their games this season, losing to the Weyburn Screaming Eagles 17-7 to open the season before falling to the Vanier Vikings 36-14 in their most recent game.
