TISDALE — After a dominating 72-0 victory over La Ronge’s Churchill Community High School, the 2-0 Tisdale Middle & Secondary School football team is looking forward to the challenge of hosting the equally undefeated Melfort and Unit Comprehensive Collegiate Comets on Friday.
“I’m absolutely excited for this,” Tornados head coach Keenan Carrier said. “I know all of my coaches are excited for this one. The players are excited for this one. It is going to be a really tough matchup. I think we pair well with Melfort this year. They’re going to be well coached. They are going to play fast. They are going to play hard.
“Definitely if we come out slow like we did against Churchill, we might be in for a rude awakening. If we can put the foot pedal down right off the hop, we have a good chance here. It is just going to be a hard-fought game. Just whoever makes the least mistakes, I think, is going to come out with a win on that week.”
Regarding last Friday’s win over Churchill, Carrier said, “Any day you can put up big numbers on the scoreboard and keep your opponent to nothing, that’s a pretty good day.” The head coach felt his team started slowly, but “as soon as we got our feet underneath us, our Grade 12s led the way, score after score, and our defence played lights out.”
After feeling his defence played a “little too high” in its season opener against Nipawin’s L.P. Miller Comprehensive School, Carrier challenged his defence to “dig deep this week and make sure we’re focusing on firing out low, staying low the entire play, and really sprinting to the ball – every player on the field.” He said the Tornados defensive line was going after the Churchill quarterback and the rest of the team had good coverage. Safety Hunter Bleile made two interceptions.
A key to the Tornados’ defensive success Carrier said was, “we really focused on rallying to the ball – getting all nine helmets there and really pursuing after the ball and flowing to the ball. I that’s just it – not letting one person do all the work out there. If there’s one person there getting a hand on, there’s going to be three other Tisdale Tornados helping out to make that tackle.”
The Tornados had a number of contributors offensively. Running back Jakeb Cortus scored seven touchdowns, Carrier said.
Junior Jamboree
On Saturday, the Tornados hosted a junior football jamboree. Teams stocked with Grade 9 and 10 players from Tisdale, Melfort and Humboldt participated. The teams played two straight time 30-minute halves against each team. Carrier said the event gets young players repetitions and “game-time” feel. Tornados players in Grade 11 and 12 helped out at the event and spoke to the younger athletes after. Carrier the older players reminisced about their days participating in the jamboree.
“They were talking about how it helped them and how it kind of gave them confidence to play in the senior games and to develop those skills in actual game-time situations,” he said.
