The Yorkton Atom Gridders simply could not find a way to contain Balgonie's explosive offensive weapon known as Caleb Smith in Sunday's Regina Minor Football (RMF) Atom championship game, resulting in a 40-13 loss for the Gridders on home soil.
Smith scored the first four Griffin touchdowns in the game and added one more in the fourth quarter to lead the Griffins North to the RMF Atom championship, while the Gridders found the end zone just twice all game, once via a Dreyden Chyz touchdown run in the first half and again via quarterback Jaxon Boyda's determination to get the six points in the third quarter.
Smith opened the scoring in the game when, on Balgonie's first possession, he broke from his receiver position to take the handoff and bolt down field for a long touchdown.
Smith did the exact same during the next two possessions, and while Chyz found the end zone for the Gridders after the second Smith score it was simply not enough as the Griffins built up an insurmountable 34-7 lead at half time before coasting to a 40-13 victory.
But while the result is a painful one for the Atom Gridders, head coach Jason Boyda still saw some big positives throughout the game, most notably from their Joker's Wild play that they used to confuse the Balgonie defence. "On our Jokers Wild Brady Bjornerud did a great job of locating Justin Adam out in the flat area on his corner route and threw a great pass," offered Boyda on the 20-plus yard pass and the 35 yards after catch gain by his two players. "Our o-line did a great job of giving him protection and time to throw the football too and then Justin made a great job catching it.
"His yards after the catch were very important for us too and it's just too bad we didn't have more of those big plays in the first half."
However Boyda is always aware that there were some negatives, especially early in the game, that aided Balgonie in jumping out to their big lead. "We had personnel problems where people forgot to go on to the field for their rep, we fumbled the ball a couple of times and we didn't finish our tackles," suggested Boyda, continuing, "That's uncharacteristic of us but sometimes with this big of a game and a little pressure on the kids, they will lose their focus.
"But hey, they're kids."
Boyda's kids shouldn't bow their heads, however. Despite losing the final game of the season, Boyda's Atom Gridders still put together the best football season in Yorkton Minor Football history, marching through the regular season with a 6-0 record and eventually finishing 6-1 and second overall in the 17 team RMF Atom division. "Unfortunately we didn't become the top dog but we should still hold our heads high because there is nothing wrong with second out of 17," mentioned the Atom Gridder bench boss. "It just shows how far this program has come and these kids should be proud of themselves because I know I am proud of them."
