Clarke Stadium – Seeing is believing and the Sturgeon Spirits are looking like the real deal in high school football.
The latest eye-popping performance was the 39-6 domination of the division two Miles conference champion Archbishop Jordan Scots in Friday’s opening playoff round.
Sturgeon is now one win away from its second metro Edmonton final after losing last year’s division three Gilfillan conference championship to the Ardrossan Bisons.
“This is one of our biggest wins in Sturgeon’s history,” said Grade 12 quarterback Zach Froese after the team’s sixth consecutive victory since the season-opening 28-7 loss to the Paul Kane Blues. “We’re a second year program and we moved up a division and this is our first playoff win in this division so it means a ton.”
Head coach Chad Hill described the result as a “butt kicking” several times during his enthusiastic post-game locker room speech.
“We just dethroned the reigning Miles champs. They ain't the champs no more. We just knocked them off,” said Hill with pride. “They know they lost that football game. They melted down with about four minutes left. They were ready to throw in the towel. That’s how physically you guys played and that’s how we’ve got to keep playing.
“Our next opponent in the semifinal is probably tougher. They don’t have the big bruising ball carriers, but they’re probably tougher than these guys mentally and a little bit physically so if you play this style of game you will have success,” Hill told the players.
Friday’s semifinal against the Leduc Tigers (4-1) kicks off at 5 p.m. at Larry Olexiuk Field and the winner will line up against Paul Kane (6-0) or Ardrossan (5-1) in the Nov. 1 final at 7:30 p.m. at Commonwealth Stadium.
Sturgeon will also make its provincial debut Nov. 9 in the Tier III (450 to 749 students) north semifinal against the host Whitecourt Cats of the Mighty Peace league.
In week eight of the Football Alberta Tier III rankings, Sturgeon is third and Whitecourt is sixth.
Sturgeon’s season-defining 35-17 victory over the St. Albert High Skyhawks (4-3), plus Thursday’s wacky 9-8 playoff loss by the No. 9-ranked Tier III Skyhawks (4-3) against Ardrossan secured the metro Edmonton provincial berth for the Namao-based team.
“We weren’t worried about provincials, we were more worried about playoffs. It’s more important to us right now. We’re not like this division two trash team that just came up (from division three),” said Grade 12 offensive threat Dylan Young. “With ABJ being last year’s champion this is a huge title for us to take from them and for us being a second year team going up into division two and making a statement like that was just amazing.
“It was a hard game. They’re a good team, but we were ready,” Young added. “We’re going to keep raising that bar. We’re not finished. We'll be back (against Leduc) for another pounding.”
Leading 16-0 at halftime, Sturgeon piled up the points after ABJ opened the second half with a 72-yard drive culminating with a 37-yard TD run. After three quarters it was a runaway at 30-6.
“We were prepared for everything they did and we executed better than them. We executed everything we game planned for. We game planned for their big (No. 32) fullback and we put him out of the game before he was actually out of the game (for the second half) with an injury,” said Froese, a linebacker on Sturgeon’s physically imposing defensive unit that laid a licking on ABJ.
Kalem Steurmer was credited with a team-high 10 tackles and recovered a fumble on an ABJ punt return in the second quarter.
Seth Gerlinsky also gathered up a fumble in the ABJ backfield early in the contest.
Kolby Phillips’ pick-six that covered about 40 yards with 1:16 left in the third quarter and Sturgeon up 23-6 was called back because of an unnecessary roughness penalty.
Joel White-Arcand, in only his second game, disrupted a play in the backfield, picked up a fumble and dragged a bunch of players several yards to the ABJ 24 with under five minutes to play.
In the last minute, ABJ conceded a safety in punt formation and Marc Leblanc’s interception came on the second-last play of the night.
“Defence. We came. We saw. We conquered. That is a statement. You shut down the biggest dog in the yard in this whole league and you shut down that offence. We got them out of their game plan and they had to start throwing the ball coming from behind,” said Hill, who singled out crushing hits by Nate Gibbons before halftime and Steurmer towards the end of the game, plus White-Arcand’s bulldozing fumble return, as impact plays. “Joel, you put an exclamation point on that win.”
Offensive thrust
The offence was led by Froese completing 10 of 22 passes for 203 yards and two TDs, plus gaining 75 yards on 10 carries while scoring three TDs, and Young’s four catches for 127 yards that included the game-breaking 65-yard catch and run score with 43 seconds left before halftime, as well as 32 yards on the ground on four handoffs.
“To have the number one receiver (Will Campbell) in the league pretty banged up, and I give him credit for gutting it out, and for the offence to still keep going and put up 37 points, way to pick it up,” Hill said.
Sturgeon opened the scoring with 2:24 left in the first quarter on Philip McLay’s 22-yard field goal a few plays after Froese’s 24-yard TD run was nullified by a holding penalty that Hill viewed as suspect.
The first TD by Froese, a five-yard up the gut run 3:49 into the second quarter, was set up by a pair of first-down receptions by Young, including a third-down swing pass to the ABJ 22. McLay’s convert was blocked.
Late in the half, after a holding penalty put the ball back at the Sturgeon 45, assistant coach Greg (Torpedo) Germain, who is in charge of the receivers, suggested a rub-divide play that sprung Young free to reel in the pass from Froese in full flight while breaking away from the defensive coverage and basically trotted into the endzone.
“I was trying to run the route and the ball came to me and I just turned on the jets and ran it in,” said Young, 17, of the play of the game. “It was just a rush of feel good stuff. It was like, ‘Wow. I just did that.’”
Sturgeon’s first series after ABJ scored in the second half was a 72-yard drive highlighted by Rylie Fox’s 32-yard reception to the ABJ 42 and Froese’s 26-yard run before a pass interference flag against ABJ put the ball at the one for Froese to score with 6:43 to go before quarter time.
“We were running some stuff at the beginning that didn’t work and then we found where the holes were and how each of their players kind of flowed and how they played so we could execute plays that counteracted that,” said Froese, 17.
The third quarter ended with Froese going 15 yards to pay dirt. On the play before, Young’s 33-yard catch and run down the sideline marked the second play for Sturgeon following the pick-six by Phillips that was wiped out.
In the last quarter, a 22-yard fake field goal resulted in Froese, the holder, hitting Leblanc in front of the endzone and he was able to crack the goal line. McLay’s fourth conversion made it 37-6 with 7:26 remaining.
The play was probably the reason why an ABJ coach called out Hill in the post-game handshake lineup for being unsportsmanlike.
Hill summed up the final outcome with the following closing remarks:
“Not bad for a year two div two/div three school,” he said. “As great as the win versus the Skyhawks was, this might be a better overall sound victory,”
