The Sacred Heart Saints senior football team played two games recently, first hosting the Broadview Bandits Thursday, September 11 before hitting the road for a Monday evening battle against Esterhazy.
Bruised by Broadview
The Saints marched into their first home game of the season full of hope, but the Broadview Bandits quickly dashed that hope scoring the game's first 38 points before a late Sacred Heart touchdown by Nathan Cochrane finally put the host side on the board with just over a minute remaining.
Broadview had the early advantage, intimidating the Saints with their size even prior to the game's opening kickoff. "It was kind of scary," offered Saints head coach Trent Senger following the loss. "They saw them come in and the first guy they saw was their number 71 who is six-foot-six and about 300 pounds. You could see their eyes just go wide."
But while the Saints may have been intimidated right off the hop they didn't show it; at least, not for the first quarter. "For the first little while we held our own. We did okay physically with them," mentioned Senger, adding that his team played well for most of the game but made a few mistakes that really cost the team. "Their first touchdown was a mistake on our safety where he just missed it and their second touchdown was due to another mistake we made on blown pass coverage."
The Saints also ran into the problem of simply being much smaller than their opposition; smaller and slower. "I don't know that size was such a factor other than their line, offence and defence, are monster and they play like it," said the Saints bench boss. "But it wasn't that they were bigger, it was that they were faster and that's what worried me.
"They're a faster team and we just don't have that closing speed."
That speed is credited to Broadview previously playing in the SHSAA Six-Man division, where all six players on the field, big or small, have to be able to run; a skill that has transferred successfully to the nine-man game.
Edged by Esterhazy
There is no rest for the weary and the Sacred Heart Saints schedule proved it as the Saints, just four days and one practice later, traveled to Esterhazy to take on the Warriors on Monday evening.
Things looked good for the Saints throughout the game, putting together some strong drives and finding the end zone several times, however the Warriors managed to outdo the boys from Yorkton, scoring one more touchdown to hand the Saints their third loss of the season, this time by a 35-27 score.
"We were right in the game throughout the entire game and the offence really came alive this game," noted Saints offensive coordinator Pete Buzinski. "Our two running backs, Caleb Sutter and Christian Flaman really ran the ball hard and right up the middle and right into the heart of their defence. It got us a lot of really tough yards."
Starting quarterback Tannum Wyonzek also put forth a strong effort in the game. A big positive as the Saints other quarterback, Bryan Buzinski, is out for the season with a broken elbow and torn tendon that he suffered in an earlier game. "Actually Tannum was playing rather well all game. We lost our starter from last game with a broken elbow and torn tendon but Tannum stepped up and has played really well," offered Buzinski, adding that the Saints have also brought in a few more quarterbacks from the junior ranks in case they run into some more injury trouble at the quarterback position later on.
Buzinski also offered his praises to two of his grade 10 receivers, Nathan Cochrane and Zach Goulden-Maddin, the former hauling down a 25-yard pass in the end zone for a touchdown while the latter made some great catches before a Warrior hit took him out of the game with concussion-like symptoms. "Yeah Zach is a little woozy right now. He took a shot to the head so he'll probably be taking a little time off to get better," said the Saints offensive coordinator, continuing, "But he made some spectacular catches early on. Nathan (Cochrane) also had a couple of nice catches in traffic and both are go-to guys for us even as grade 10 guys."
Next up
The next action for the Sacred Heart Saints (0-3) will be Friday when they host the Melville Cobras (2-0) for a 4:00p.m. game.
