The Sacred Heart Saints finished up their spring football season this past Sunday at Sacred Heart’s football field with two-plus hours of football scrimmage action.
The Saints were joined by the Melville Cobras and Moosomin Generals in the spring developmental league and, instead of playing head-to-head games, the three teams opted to go for a new spring league setup where all three teams would play a series of scrimmages in order to better develop the players. “We play scrimmage games unlike last year where we played full games,” offered Sacred Heart acting head coach Cory Johnson. “It’s a new approach and what we’re doing is we’re trying to teach the fundamentals of football. Safe contact, how to work with your teammates, cooperation, dedication at a young age and what it takes to be a proper athlete in high school.
“This way we also get to see what the players are doing in their 10 plays, then take them off and talk it over with them and see if the make the necessary changes in their next 10 plays.”
Johnson said that overall the players have really taken to the new style of spring football as evidenced by the continued rise in numbers throughout the spring. “Here in Yorkton specifically we’ve almost doubled our numbers of kids from grade six to 12,” mentioned Johnson, adding that the other communities have also seen an increase in participation since last year. “Generally at our practices we’ve been running with 22-23 for both the junior and senior programs, so 44-46 kids in total.
“The other guys are running anywhere from 20 juniors to 15-18 senior players so all together we may have anywhere from 130-150 kids if everyone can make it but usually we’re at about 100 kids per weekend.”
Overall Johnson feels that the spring football season was a success, especially for the Saints, and that the hard work this spring will show up this coming fall in SHSAA nine-man action. “I think the guys that came out for spring football will definitely have an advantage this coming fall,” said Johnson. “We have managed to teach them some new things and get them prepared for next season.”
