Chuck Taylor
Journal Contributor
The weather was cool but not cold, and sunny, perfect weather for more than 200 parents and fans who took time to watch some bantam football in St. Paul on Sept. 7.
It was a tale of two games, but one story. Friday night’s big win for the high school Lions over an inexperienced team from Westlock and Saturday’s inexperienced bantam Bengals dropping a heart breaker to a veteran team from Lloydminster.
Most of the Red Dogs played peewee football and have been playing together for an additional two years.
“We don’t have a peewee program and it usually takes a game or two for our kids to start getting up to speed. We are very green and 50 per cent of our kids were playing in their first game of their careers,” said head coach Todd Tanasichuk.
This is the second year in a row the Bengals have taken on the preseason favourite in the opening game of the season. St. Paul dropped last year’s game 55 – 0 and still bounced back to advance to the Wheatland Bantam Football League Championship Game.
Lloydminster has adopted the double wing offence for this season. It is normally a run heavy formation and the Bengals defence prepared with that in mind.
“We prepared for what we thought they were going to do. Instead of running and lots of motion, we got a pass first offence that threw long bombs. We made adjustments but some of the kids are so new they don’t really understand the game, so don’t understand the changes we were trying to make,” said Tanasichuk.
There were lots of bright spots for St. Paul. Grade 8 quarterback Ryan McLellan had a strong outing and lead his Bengals on an 18-play touchdown drive capped off with fullback Ryan Fodchuk smashing into the endzone.
They had several other sustained drives and a dropped pass that would have been another touchdown. The kicking game and return teams were also effective. Veterans Drayden Cardinal and Fodchuk had strong games for the Bengals offence.
“In a lot of cases we are still figuring out what we have and where kids will fit in best,” Tanasichuk said.
Losses highlight deficiencies and none of St. Paul’s are insurmountable. Open field tackling and containment were the main issues with the defence and are all things that just come with practice.
“We had some kids who started to freelance on the defence. That can be fixed by simply expanding their understanding of the game. I hope they are watching football today,” Tanasichuk quipped on Sunday, as the NFL season got underway.
The Bengals next take on the reborn Vegreville Bantam Vortex in Vegreville on Sept. 14 at 1 p.m. Vegreville lost their coach in an automobile accident and dropped out of the Wheatland Football League on the eve of the 2017 high school season.
The old Vortex didn’t start playing until Grade 10 and suffered for it. Vegreville Football decided to start from the bottom and started a bantam program, first building at the grassroots level so when players hit the high school gridiron they are ready to win.
The Vortex dropped their opening game to the Cold Lake Ravens 45 – 40.
“This will be Vegreville’s first bantam home game ever. They will be ready to play and we need to be ready for a high level of intensity,” said Tanasichuk.
