The St. Paul Lions kicked off the season with a home opener Friday night against the visiting Athabasca Pacers, which was cut short in the third quarter due to a thunderstorm. However, the approaching weather did not put a damper on the team, as the team put on a dominant performance in the first half, with the Lions leading by 41-0 when the game was called.
Less than a minute into the game, during the first offensive drive for the Lions, quarterback Parker Lumby made a touchdown pass to Christian Laramee in the end zone after a 20 plus yard run. That opening offensive play “set the tone for the rest of the game” for the Lions, according to third year member of the team Spencer Graling. However, he noted both the Pacers and the Lions have several new, young and inexperienced players. While the Lions had played an exhibition game on Aug. 27 in Camrose, the Friday evening game was the boys’ first official match.
“We knew that this being our first official high school game of the season, both teams were going to make mistakes on both sides of the ball.”
While the Lions performed well on both sides of the ball throughout the first half, the team did have a few shaky moments.
During a punt, kicker Madison Brousseau lined up to take the snap, but the snap went clear over his head, forcing him to scramble to protect the ball in a play that could have lost the Lions possession of the ball. The ball ended up about 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage, and Brousseau managed to run the ball back to the line of scrimmage, making an outlet pass to Henri Laidley who made a heads-up play to get open for the pass, just making for a first down.
Coach John Lumby commented on how costly that situation could have been. “It looked like we were in real trouble, but our boys scrambled really well and salvaged that play. It was a cool play to watch.”
Graling added how impressed he was with his teammates’ heads-up play, as well as how the play resembled something from backyard football.
“Madison remained calm under the circumstance instead of running into a fray of defenders. Henri did a great job of reading the situation and getting open as an outlet for Madison to get the pass off.”
Lumby gave the entire team credit as all the systems worked well and the younger players seemed to pick up very quickly on the concepts the team had been working on in practice, and they showed this in the game.
“Our offensive line played well. Some of those guys are new to the position, Coach () Oliver’s doing a great job on our offense. The offensive line is very important to the success of the offense, and they did some great run blocking and pass protection.”
He also gave credit to coach Chuck Taylor for fined-tuning the team’s defense.
“The players were tackling really well. Even the new players were picking it up quickly. Our guys who came up from the Bengals really did a good job,” said Lumby.
Graling also feels coaches Oliver and Taylor are doing a great job, and being new to the football club, he said they have helped bring much needed new ideas to the Lions from their days of high school and post-secondary ball. This “blend of old and new viewpoints will help us tackle any adversity we face this season,” says Graling.
The Lions next head to Vegreville to play a Friday night game under the lights, and Lumby expects this to be a challenging match, as he believes the Vegreville team has improved this year.
“We’ll benefit from this because we need tough games to prepare us for the really hard games we have coming up later in the season. It’s going to be a good battle and we’re ready for it.”
The Friday night matchup will be their second of five games in the league this season, along with a future exhibition game in Edmonton. After the Wheatland Football league playoffs are completed, provincials will begin for the Lions on Nov. 6.
The football club’s bantam team, the Bengals, hit the road on Saturday to take on the Lloydminster Mustangs. The team ended up fighting hard and opening its season with a win, with a 27-14 victory.
The Bengals’ boys will play their home opener on Sept. 10 against the Bonnyville Chargers, last year’s Tier 3 Provincial Champions.
