Two weeks ago, the North Battleford Comprehensive High School Vikings football team suffered their first loss of the season to the Marion Graham Falcons by a score of 30-7 in Saskatoon.
They now have a chance to exact some revenge in the playoffs.
Thanks to a 36-14 win over the Evan Hardy Souls Thursday, the 4-2 Vikings will square off against the Falcons in a SSSAD 3A semifinal game at 5:15 p.m. Friday at the Saskatoon Minor Football Field.
“We have a pretty good idea of what the Falcons like to do on both sides of the football and now we have a chance to get a good game plan in place for them,” Vikings head coach Mike Humenny said.
“The way our schedule was set up, we had our two most difficult games back to back with Marion Graham and Bishop James Mahoney, and after two rocky games against them we have a good hold of things now. We’ll have some good practice here this week and we’ll see how it goes.”
It was a dominant performance for the Vikings in their regular season finale, as they raced out to a 36-0 lead and rested most of their starters in the second half.
“We wanted to come out and play as physically as we possibly could right from the start,” Humenny said.
“We were able to do that on both sides of the ball, especially with our running game. That allowed us to open more space for our wide receivers, as their defence was focused on trying to slow down our rushing attack.”
One of the key players who helped to pace the Vikings on offence was Grade 10 running back J.T. Lamb, who had been sidelined for most of the year with a wrist injury.
“We’ve been expecting him to carry the load for us on offence all year and he was finally able to play for us last week against Bishop James Mahoney,” Humenny said. “They are one of the better teams in the province, especially on defence, and he was able to hold his own against them.
“We had to remind ourselves at times that last week was his first ever start in senior football. So this week, we established the run early with J.T., and he had a monster game in the first half that really helped to set the tone for us.”
The Vikings defence was also dominant, as they were able to slow down any big play attempts the Souls had early.
“We played Evan Hardy in our season opening game last year and they ran an outside sweep play that we had trouble defending,” Humenny said.
“This year, we knew when the play was coming and we were able to stop them at the point of the attack.”
The winner of Friday’s encounter between the Vikings and the Falcons will advance to the city championship game Oct. 29 in Saskatoon.
The other semifinal will also take place on Friday night with the Tommy Douglas Tigers going up against the Saints.
