The Humboldt Collegiate Mohawks picked up their first win of the season as they traveled to La Ronge on Sept. 29 and knocked off the Churchill Chargers 27-14.
After dropping their first two games of the season to Nipawin and Melfort, the young Mohawks responded with a solid effort, and showed great improvement, noted head coach Cory Popoff.
“We could tell with more experience we were getting better as a team every play.”
After giving up far too many big plays against the Comets in their week three loss, the focus coming into week four was to limit the amount of big plays against, and while the Mohawks still gave up big plays, they were able to make smaller mistakes, noted Popoff.
“There was never really a point in time where we made such a bad mistake that we weren’t able to make a tackle so there wasn’t any easy points against us this time around.”
Popoff noted that their week three loss provided the Mohawks with a number of lessons that they were able to bring into this game, which helped them be successful, including never giving up and playing as a team.
“It was definitely trusting the person is doing their job. I know that the one thing that that particular game helped us with was just showing people our resiliency and our ability to play hard no matter what the score indicates.”
The win came at a critical time for the Mohawks as they needed a win over the Chargers to give themselves an inside track at the second 3A nine-man playoff spot in their conference, with the Comets seemingly having the first spot already locked up.
Seeing the Mohawks rebound from the loss and put together such a solid effort in a critical game was great to see, says Popoff, who notes they spent a lot of time talking about trusting each other and making sure everyone did their job.
“They came together as a team. It wasn’t easy for us by any stretch of that word. But what showed the most during this game was our team’s ability to work together as a unit for a common purpose,” he said.
“It’s great. We’ve still got one more game that we need to play against La Ronge and that will certainly decide our playoff fate.”
Looking ahead, the Mohawks’ next action comes on Oct. 6 as they welcome this winless Tisdale Tornadoes to town.
The key heading into that contest will be to have another solid week of practice, says Popoff.
“I know Tisdale’s hungry for a win just as much as we are. So it’ll be a battle nonetheless and our plan is of course to continue with our momentum and come out with a win.”
