Suffocating defence and opportunistic offence proved to be the difference on Saturday afternoon at Century Field as the Yorkton Atom Gridders improved their record to a perfect 3-0-0, downing the visiting Regina Badgers 20-8 in RMFL Atom Division action.
The win keeps the Atom Gridders at the top of the RMFL Atom standings, one point up on the Regina Bears (2-0-1).
The Eskimos (2-0-0), Canadians (2-0-0), Lions (2-1-0) and Alouettes (2-1-0) all have four points and sit from third thru to sixth while the Gaitors (1-1-1) are in seventh with three points.
The Balgonie Atom Griffins (1-1-0), Thunderbirds (1-2-0) and Ti-Cats (1-2-0) sit eight thru to ten respectively with two points while the Badgers (0-3-0), Kats (0-3-0) and Bengals (0-3-0) have yet to pick up a point this season.
Veteran atom star Justin Adam opened the scoring for the Gridders, rushing the ball through the Badger defence all the way to the house to make it a one score lead for the host team.
Rookie Brandon Spilchen then added to the Gridder advantage, scoring his first career touchdown off of a quick screen play to make it 14-0 at half-time. 鈥淭hat was a big touchdown for us, having Spilchen catch the pass and score,鈥� said Atom Gridder head coach Ryan Effa, adding that seeing the hitch screen play find success in a game was something extra special. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been working on that play in practice for the last three weeks and we finally pulled it out today and Spilchen did a great job making a big play for us.鈥�
The start of the second half saw the Atom Gridder defence pick up right where it left off, preventing the Badgers from mounting any sort of offence on the ground and forcing the Regina squad to turn to their air offence.
A forced decision that proved to be costly, as Garin Lammers took full advantage of the lacklustre air offence of the Badgers, picking off an errant pass and going all the way to the end zone for the pick six to make it 20-0 for Yorkton. 鈥淭hat was a huge, huge play for us with the defence scored six points for us; that was a huge turning point in the game,鈥� offered coach Effa,continuing, 鈥淕arin鈥檚 big play was obviously the biggest defensive play in the game, but it was a total team defence win.
鈥淲e focused on containing the outside run and that鈥檚 what we did and we had no trouble.鈥�
A late Regina touchdown broke the Gridder shutout, however it was too little, too late, as Yorkton picked up their third win of the season, 20-8 over the Regina Badgers.
However things weren鈥檛 all peachy for the Atom Gridders on the day as, according to their head coach, a full game effort is something that still eludes them. 鈥淲e usually start strong in games. We come out strong but we have to figure out a way to keep that going,鈥� suggested Effa. 鈥淲e just have to fight through adjustments and keep that going through four quarters.
鈥淚t鈥檒l come, but it鈥檚 something we need to get done soon.鈥�
The next opportunity for the Atom Gridders to put forth a full 48-minute effort will be this coming Saturday, September 5, when they travel to Regina to battle their rivals the Balgonie Atom Griffins. Kick-off is set for 4:15p.m. at Regina鈥檚 Leibel Field.
