The Estevan Comprehensive School Elecs fell 42-0 to the defending Moose Jaw High School Football League champion Albert E. Peacock Collegiate Tornadoes in the Friendly City on Saturday, but the lessons learned during the game may help the club bounce back over the next few weeks.
Mark Schott, head coach of the 0-2 Elecs, said while each of his players went into the match with the mentality that any team can be beaten on any given day the big bodies on the Tornadoes (2-0) had other ideas. He said they controlled the play physically early on and jumped ahead on offence resulting in the Elecs having to play comeback from a 28-0 first-half deficit.
“In that type of situation it really revealed a lot about the type of team and the type of group that we have,” said Schott. “I put that challenge to them saying we need to respond and we need to step things up and figure out a way to match what is happening on the other side of the ball and our guys did come out a lot better in the second half. We just weren’t able to get points on the board. So, it would have been nice to make the game a little bit closer, but we had some success moving the ball in the second half and we forced some turnovers.”
Schott said they did manage to play everyone against the Tornadoes and that included putting a few guys in positions that they wouldn’t normally occupy including quarterback Andrew Kehler who recorded his first-ever sack while coming in as a linebacker. He said the experience gained by having everyone come in for a few plays as well as their ability to put up a strong second half against the top team in their league should help them in their next two contests in Yorkton versus the Raiders (0-2) on Saturday before they head home to play Moose Jaw's Vanier Collegiate Institute Vikings (1-1) on Sept. 24.
“We’ve got a couple of games here where if we can put something together and get a couple of good weeks of practice we (could) pull off one or two wins,” he said. Then “we’re right back in the middle of things in our league, so it’s a big couple of weeks for us as a team.”
