Finding consistency is usually one of the biggest challenges when dealing with a team of young kids, and for the Estevan Sherritt Coal Miners, Saturday was a prime example of that.
A week after a 6-0 loss to Weyburn that was encouraging in a number of aspects, the atom Miners fell 54-0 to the Regina Alouettes in the provincial capital.
Estevan dropped to 1-5 on the year, while the Alouettes improved to 3-2-1 in what was the final regular season game for both.
"It's been a season of peaks and valleys and Saturday was definitely the lowest of the valleys," said Miners head coach Wanda Harron.
"Whatever could go wrong, did.They intercepted the ball on us, they ran the reverse perfectly on us, they ran up the middle on us, a pitch from our quarterback meant for one of our running backs went directly into the hands of one of their players, we fumbled."
Harron said the difference between the Sept. 15 game against Weyburn and the loss to the Alouettes is puzzling.
"I just don't understand how we could play so well one week against Weyburn and then come in and perform like this.And I thought we had a strong week of practice. But I think we've seen it at all levels in all sports before."
The Miners trailed 6-0 after the first quarter and 32-0 at half. While they did hold the Alouettes scoreless in the third quarter, it was too little, too late.
Harron said Estevan had "maybe two first downs" on offence.
"Again, it was a big-time lack of blocking. Defensively, it was likely our worst outing of the year."
There were a couple of bright spots, as Sarkis Davidian and Kade Lukye each recovered a fumble.
Harron said the Miners' coaching staff has tried all kinds of methods to motivate the players.
"I sometimes think they should offer a session in child psychology when we go to our coaching clinics, because we tried everything with our team on Saturday," she laughed. "I've been a coach full of sunshine and lollipops all season, but I tried yelling, I tried the nice 'what's going on out there, what do you see' approach, told them we were disappointed in the effort. We even promised the kids pizza if they scored. But nothing worked."
The Miners' season isn't over, as they will play the Regina Lions (1-5) in the Estevan Boston Pizza Bowl on Saturday in Regina.
"We'll likely work on more blocking this week, polish up the tackling and maybe try some competitive games that involve football skills to light some fire under them.
"We have to try and get them to play for each other, play with pride, play like I know they can and get a W to end the season."
