When two undefeated teams meet, one will not walk away with a spotless record.
Unfortunately for the Humboldt Collegiate Institute football team, they were the squad with the black mark on their record after playing the Warman Warriors in the 3A provincial semifinals. Warman came out on top, 42-22, on Saturday at Glen Hall Park. The HCI Mohawks trailed 27-8 at halftime, but, with adjustments being made, they fought back to cut the deficit to just seven, 28-21, at the end of the third quarter.
“What I was most pleased with was the ability of our players to keep focused on the game and getting better every play. … They just showed some resilience,” Mohawks head coach Cory Popoff said.
Warman advances to the provincial finals against Melfort. The Comets won their semifinal matchup, 45-15, with North Battleford’s John Paul II Collegiate.
The loss to Warman was HCI’s lone defeat this season. The Mohawks romped through the regular season with a 6-0 record and defeated Martensville in the first round of the playoffs.
Popoff praised the Mohawks for their strong work ethic during the season and in the offseason. He noted the players were always wanting to do more conditioning or run more plays. Popoff emphasized that was coming from the players – not the coaching staff.
“It has been the players themselves taking care of their play and their achievements in football. That is pretty rare. For that, this was an exceptional team.”
Popoff noted there were some sad moments for the Grade 12 student-athletes as their high school gridiron careers came to an end. He said the coaching staff and players appreciated all of the alumni who came out to the game.
Against Warman, the Mohawks led 1-0 after the first quarter thanks to Jared Giddings’ punt single. The Warriors scored a touchdown in the second quarter to take the lead. On defence, Giddings picked off the Warman quarterback and returned it for a touchdown to tie up the game. Warman then scored three more touchdowns, including one on a punt return, to lead 27-8 at halftime.
“Defence for Warman definitely outshone us in the first half,” Popoff said. “They played well.”
The head coach said the Mohawks defence was “gritty” in the first half. Its play helped buy time for the HCI offence to get going.
“Our defence played really, really well,” Popoff said of the game in general.
In the third quarter, HCI quarterback Landon Seipp threw a TD pass to Giddings for the Mohawks’ first offensive major of the day. The HCI defence came up big on a Warman third down. The Mohawks grabbed this opportunity to score again with Seipp throwing to Tanner Gerwing in the end zone. A missed field goal gave Warman a single point and the score was 28-21 at the end of the third quarter.
The Mohawks picked up a point on a missed field goal in the fourth quarter. However, Warman was able to add two touchdowns to win the game and go on to provincials on Nov. 14.
