The Sacred Heart Sr. Saints football team finished their 2015 exhibition season with a 53-7 home field loss to the visiting Foam Lake Panthers last Thursday afternoon.
However Saints head coach Trent Senger knows that the 46-point loss means absolutely nothing, and that the positives from the game vastly outweigh the result. “You can lose by one or lose by a hundred; it really makes no difference in preseason. We did what we set out to do. We got every kid in and they all played at least a quarter, if not more,” offered Senger, continuing, “That kind of hurt us on the scoreboard a little bit. They saw our two little guys out there on the corners and really took advantage of that. The last couple of scores they ran it right at our smallest kids with their biggest guys but really that’s just football. They’ve got to learn that they have to play tough.
“I was happy with how it turned out. Nobody was hurt which to me is the biggest thing. We did have a couple of guys go out with a couple of bad bruises, but nothing that is going to be needing more than three or four days of rest.”
Senger also mentioned that the second exhibition game of the season allowed him and his coaching staff to get a better look at their starting offensive line. “We put in what we’ll call our starting offensive line to start the third quarter and they pushed the ball down and we scored,” said the Sacred Heart head coach. “They took over for our grade 10’s and played well.”
The final preseason game also let the Saints give their now starting quarterback, grade 10 student Austin Walkington, some much needed action ahead of the 2015 regular season. “Another good thing is that we saw that Austin Walkington’s arm is strong. He threw a couple of balls that we caught when he finally got the time to get a pass off and we found out that he can really zip them in there,” mentioned Senger. “He played half the first game and a little more than half of this game at the quarterback position and he’s getting better and better, but it’s really his first chance at being a quarterback ever and it’s really a learning thing.”
Walkington and the rest of the Sacred Heart Saints senior football team will get to put what they are learning to the test when they open up their 2015 SHSAA Nine-man football season in two weeks when they host the Melville Cobras for their home opener.
