It wasn鈥檛 quite how the Yorkton Peewee Gridder coaching staff drew it up, but in the end the result was still the right one as the Peewee Gridders held off a strong Regina Huskies squad for a 70-44 win in Regina Minor Football Peewee Division action this past Saturday at Century Field.
The win sees the Gridders move to 7-0 on the season and into sole possession of first place for the time being, two points up on both the Balgonie North Griffins (6-0) and Riders (6-0).
The Razorbacks sit in fourth with a record of 5-2, while the Thunder and Mustangs share fifth and sixth with identical records of 4-2.
The Patriots hold down seventh at 3-3 while the Vikings round out the top eight with a record of 3-4.
The Argos and Huskies sit ninth and tenth with 1-5 records, while the Balgonie 麻豆传媒AV Griffins and the Rams are 11 and 12 respectively with a record of 1-6 each. The Golden Hawks remain in the RMF Peewee basement with a record of 0-7.
Willen Paligan once again led the way with seven touchdowns on 275 yards rushing, while quarterback Riley Clarke hit receiver Johntee Ostapowich for two touchdowns.
Josh Haczkewicz continued to prove why he is a valuable asset to the Peewee Gridder attack, picking up 125 combined yards while finding the end zone on a 60-plus yard touchdown run. 鈥淥ur offence did a great job scoring points today, but not everything was executed successfully,鈥� said Peewee Gridder head coach Grant Edgar, adding that the Peewees seemed to struggle with holding on to the ball at key times in the game. 鈥淲e had four turnovers on the offence and this is the first game that we have suffered a turnover.
鈥淎lthough we put up 70 points it鈥檚 still a little misleading because we turned the ball over four times, so that鈥檚 something that we鈥檙e going to have to focus on this coming week at practice.鈥�
Overall coach Edgar admitted that his team didn鈥檛 play as well as they had earlier in the season, but admitted that he鈥檇 rather see them have a game like this now instead of later. 鈥淚鈥檇 rather have this game right now than in the playoffs when the games mean a little more,鈥� said Edgar, adding that the defence played admirably in the second half to limit the Huskies to just one touchdown in the second half. 鈥淗ats off to our defence, they gave up 22 points in the first quarter, 36 in the first half and then limited them to eight points the rest of the way.
鈥淭hey stepped up when they needed to once they got going and they made the plays when needed.鈥�
Two players that stepped up defensively for the Gridders were Fayden Gramyk and Brad Heskin, both of whom caused all sorts of problems for the Huskies quarterback in the second half with Gramyk registering five sacks, while Heskin picked up two.
Up next
The next action for the Yorkton Peewee Gridders (7-0) is this Saturday when they travel to Regina for their final game of the regular season against the Regina Patriots (3-3). A win by 20 or more points will guarantee the Gridders at least a second place finish in the regular season.
