They were smaller, lighter and fewer in number and they pulled off a storybook ending to their football season. The Moose Jaw Bantam Raiders, which included five Assiniboia players, finished their 12-man football season in high drama with a three-win playoff run to take the Moose Jaw Minor Football League’s Bantam Division Championship on October 26 in a night game under the lights. It was a game to be long-remembered throughout southern Saskatchewan.
In the game final, the Raiders scored a huge upset victory, defeating the physically larger and more numerous Weyburn Falcons’ squad 20-12. “I couldn’t be more proud of the team,” said Jamie Passmore, head coach for the Moose Jaw Bantam Raiders.
What makes this win so remarkable is that the Raiders were the underdog team battling against tremendous odds. They lounged at the bottom of the table in the regular season with only one win.
Much of the squad came from the younger grades, Grades 8,9 and 10, and were still physically shorter and lighter in weight than the teams at the top of the league table. The Raiders fielded only 36 players, while the Weyburn Falcons had 50.
Then came the playoffs and the Raiders steamrolled through three straight wins. The team defeated the Estevan Oilers by a lopsided score of 40-6 in the quarterfinals. They downed the undefeated Moose Jaw Razorbacks, the number one team in the league, 17 to 14 in a spectacular overtime win. So amazing was this win, that even the Razorbacks shared in cheering for the Raiders’ victory.
The Raiders head coach needed to keep his players focused after these remarkable wins. “I told them to keep fighting, keep clawing,” said Passmore. “We’re not done yet.” The players responded to the coach. The players even had meetings outside practice time to help them stay focused on the games. There was a moment, Passmore recalls, when the team shut down after a particularly difficult game. “Don’t give up. Don’t lose the fight,” he implored them later in the locker room.
They met a mighty Weyburn team in the final that just finished squashing its semi-final opposition from Swift Current 43 to 0.
Passmore credits team unity for driving the team to win. He noted that he wouldn’t be able to pick out a most valuable player of the game because they were all great. “Those kids had so much heart and once they knew they could do it, there was no stopping them,” Passmore said. He noted that there was a sense of the collective will to win, a “let’s do this together” attitude.
Passmore praised the five players from Assiniboia who drove every day to Moose Jaw for practices and games: Tayvin Peterson, Cole Selody, Tag Zahariuk, Kane Kuffner and Shane Luke. “They were all decision-makers. They were key players that made a difference in our win,” Passmore commented about the Assiniboia contingent.
The Moose Jaw Bantam Raiders’ season reads like a Hollywood David vs. Goliath movie script complete with a happy ending. As Passmore noted, the students playing football this season learned invaluable life lessons about not giving up even when the barriers seem insurmountable, about the value of working together to achieve a goal, and about digging deep to find courage.
This season the Moose Jaw Bantam Raiders had a roster of 36 including 20 new players. Head coach Passmore had about six special coaches assisting him. Next year, the team is expected to lose some key players, but at least 17 will be returning.
