It would be a familiar start for head coach Mike Jarvis and the Yorkton Regional High School Jr. Raiders in the Regina Minor Football league. Low on numbers due to many potential players being on holiday for the summer vacation, a 26 man Jr. Raiders roster showed some first game jitters against Balgonie to close out a tripleheader of RMF action at Century Field Sunday.
Yorkton would eventually lose 22-1 to Balgonie, conditioning and the timing that comes with experience and more practice reps lacking, something that isn't exactly a bad thing when you look back to the Jr. Raiders successful 2012 season, a year where they won their first RMF playoff game on their way to an unlikely RMF Championship appearance. That team got stronger and stronger as the year wore on, but not before losing their first four games of the season. Standouts Caleb Bymak and Alex Popoff may have graduated from the Jr. Raiders to Roby Sharpe's Varsity arsenal, but returning players in Lukas Muir, Brayden Jarvis, and Nick Payne showed flashes of the play that helped lead the Jr. Raiders to their most successful season ever, something that helps Jarvis' hypothesis that the 2013 Raiders are also a work in progress.
"When you have 26 guys on a sweltering hot day like today there is only so much training camp and practice conditioning can do in preparing a player for some players first game action at the Bantam level and I think despite losing the game we saw a lot of positives in our team that we can definitely build around," says Jarvis.
The Raiders were in the mix for much of the game before an unfortunate interception for a touchdown halted Yorkton's bid for a win. To the Raiders credit they put the ball inside Balgonie's territory on the majority of their second half drive with some good blocking and running leading the way with Payne moving the chains in the air when needed.
Jarvis also pointed out that the Raiders small roster leaves a lot of opportunity for interested Bantam aged players to come onto the team in the coming weeks once the boom in interested players begins with the start of the school year, an RMF wrinkle as the independent league is not affiliated with the SHSAA, allowing it to start in mid-August. "We have a lot of guys on summer vacation who have expressed interest and are also looking to bring in more interested players to teach them the game of football at the same time as adding depth to our team," says Jarvis who mentioned practices are weekday evenings at Century Field for interested players.
With talent already in place and a proven coaching staff at developing a team throughout the season in Jarvis as well as coaches Jordan Kroll and Jason Payne, the Jr. Raiders won't dwell too long on their opening day loss. In fact the loss may be a good omen looking back on last year as the Jr. version of the orange and brown know that it isn't about how you start, it is all about how you finish.
