Yorkton Minor Football's Atom Gridders showed why they are a dominant force in the Regina Minor Football League atom division on Saturday, stomping a mud hole in the Regina Lions and walking it dry in the form of a 42-6 victory.
Running back Dreyden Chyz accounted for three of the Atom Gridders' six touchdowns, running the ball in for three separate scores, while Garrett Ellis also found the end zone multiple times twice rushing the ball past the Lion defence and into the house. "Chyz is a horse," exclaimed boisterous atom head coach Jason Boyda following his team's impressive win. "He's got big thighs and we call him 'Pistons' because he's always hammering his legs into the ground when he goes through the line."
Yorkton's final score came in the form of a Jaxon Boyda touchdown pass to Justin Adam. Boyda also completed two convert passes for a point each due to Regina Minor Football's rule that a kicking convert is two points, while a conventional two point conversion is ruled to be one as kicking is deemed more difficult at a young age.
John Cookson also had a strong game on the ground with minimal carries, averaging over 10 yard per carry on Saturday. A performance that was good enough to impress his head coach and one that adds yet another weapon to a very formidable offence. "John Cookson was a nice surprise today, he really impressed me," offered the atom head coach. "He doesn't get the rock as much as he would like but he got it a couple of times today and he made it count."
The Atom Gridders defence was also its usual self, dominating the opposing offence and forcing the Lion quarterback into bad situations, resulting in a pair of John Stoll interceptions and a countless number of rushed plays. "Coach Effa does a great job preparing our defensive unit against any opponent we play and our players buy into his system," said head coach Boyda, continuing, "More importantly they execute his schemes perfectly.
"And when they do what the X's and O's drawn up by Effa tell them to do, our defence is doing one of two things: Making plays or wrecking plays."
The next chance for the Atom Gridders (5-0) to make a play or wreck a play will be this Saturday when they wrap up their regular season on the road against the Regina Cardinals (1-4). Game time is set for 11:00a.m. at Leibel Field.
Peewee power outage
Lack of execution and too many mental mistakes cost the Yorkton Peewee Gridders a chance at their second win of the season on Saturday at Century Field against the visiting Regina Mustangs.
Things looked decent early on, as the Peewee Gridders cut into the Mustang 14 point lead in the first half with a 50-yard scamper into the end zone by Dylan Lepowick.
However a bevy of Gridder mistakes enabled the visiting Mustangs to not only answer the Lepowick touchdown, but continually find the end zone resulting in a 26 point halftime lead for the Mustangs with the score 34-8.
Things didn't get much better for the Gridders in the second half either, as the Mustangs scored 19 unanswered second half points to run away with the victory, 53-8. "We beat ourselves today," said an unhappy Grant Edgar, head coach of the Peewee Gridders. "We turned the ball over way too many times and it was just bad mental errors that cost us. Missed assignments, dropped balls, everything."
But out of failure comes success and two players in particular succeeded; at least on the personal side of things. "Steven Smith is a great player. He always comes to play," offered Edgar of his star linebacker. "He's one of those kids that gives 100% whether his team is up by 50 points or down by 50 points. Steven has all that success because he shows up to practice and he works his butt off every single practice. I'm a believer that, if you work hard in practice it's going to filter into the game and Steven Smith is a prime example of that and hopefully the others will see that and follow his example."
Edgar also singled out offensive lineman Riley Richards as a player that had a strong game. "Richards had a good game blocking," mentioned Edgar. "He made a couple really nice blocks that actually sprung our lone touchdown, a 50-yard run by Dylan Lepowick, and he sprung that with a big block."
The next action for the Yorkton Peewee Gridders (1-4) will be this Saturday when they take on the Balgonie Â鶹´«Ã½AV Peewee Griffins (2-3) at Regina's Leibel Field.
