A strong ground game led the Weyburn Comprehensive School (WCS) Eagles to a 28-6 road win over the Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) Elecs at Woodlawn Field on Thursday.
The Eagles amassed 357 rushing yards compared to 45 for the hometown club, with the majority of these gains coming in the second half thanks to 25-yard and 65-yard runs by Cody Vilcu and Chase Fillmore, respectively, for touchdowns in the fourth quarter. WCS did employ the run to a great effect in the first half as well with Rylan Hoffman carrying the ball for 68 of his 105 total yards in the frame.
However, the game remained close through the first half with the Eagles only leading 1-0 until the final play of the second quarter when Brayden Barsness threw an outstanding block allowing quarterback Andrew Hulbert to run 55 yards for a touchdown to put his team up 8-0, with a subsequent Thomas Goranson convert, heading into halftime.
“I was thinking it was a couple of seconds left in the half,” said Eagles head coach Darren Abel. “I thought ‘okay, as long as we can eat the time and go into the half 1-0 (it’s all right)’ and then our quarterback took off with it and got the great block and he was in for the touchdown. That was a huge momentum change for us.”
On the first series of the game, Elecs quarterback Andrew Kehler was picked off by the Eagles’ Nivay Haupstein at Weyburn’s 40-yard line, but the team made up for the error on the next drive snatching a Hoffman fumble on their own 34. The Eagles did get the best opportunity to go up in the first quarter when the club had the ball at the Estevan six-yard line and two chances to advance to the end zone only to have the Elecs’ defence put up a wall in the red zone and their offence march the ball back out to the open field on their next possession.
After Goranson was wide on a field goal try resulting in the single point 4:39 into the second quarter and apart from the Hulbert score, neither offence seemed able to generate much pressure until the final moments of the third quarter when Fillmore made a 55-yard run from his own 29-yard line to set up his own one-yard dive into the end zone 2:39 into the final period making the score 15-0 including the Goranson convert. Between Vilcu’s and Fillmore’s second touchdowns in the final nine minutes of the game, Elecs receiver Donny Mortenson put the home side on the board pulling in a six-yard touchdown pass from backup quarterback Cameron Rioux with 1:14 remaining.
“We had some issues in the first quarter and a little bit in the first half there where we had some disorganization on offence and some confusion led to some turnovers and a couple bad snaps,” said Elecs head coach Mark Schott. “Defensively we held strong and then late in the second half Weyburn started to make some big plays and our guys put up a good fight, but they ran out of gas a little bit there toward the end.”
Schott said their next test against Moose Jaw’s Peacock Collegiate on the road Saturday will be a tough one as they are one of the top teams in the Moose Jaw High School Football League. He said the coaching staff is going to be working with the kids to make sure they are better organized on both sides of the ball with everyone knowing the responsibilities that come with their positions.
“I thought there was a lot of extra coaching in terms of positioning today where that is something that should already be taken care of,” he said. “Once we know that, it’s easier to make in-game adjustments because we’re not constantly aligning everybody and worrying about that. It’s easier to watch the play because everybody is in the right spot.”
