The Knights packed a full-game worth of performances into a half on senior night.
The Holy Trinity Academy Knights overpowered the Bishop O’Byrne Bobcats by a 54-7 count in just two quarters in a game that was halted at the half on Sept. 28 at Knights field in the team's final home game of the regular season.
“A game like this, it was our bye week so it was awesome to have the opportunity to play and keep improving our skills,” said Knights Grade 12 receiver Chris McLarty. “We have to win with humility, it wasn’t the closest of games, but just try to keep honing our skills and get ready for playoffs.”
McLarty helped set the tone early with a pair of punt return touchdowns in a dominant first-half.
The HTA track and field star showed his considerable open field speed with a 50-yard sprint down the left sideline to put the Knights on the board before the offence touched the ball.
He would another major in short order on a 40-yard scamper.
“Special teams is one of my favourites, it’s you against the whole opposing team,” McLarty said. “It was awesome with the amount of blocks from my team to set up those two runs.”
McLarty had been chomping at the bit to get special teams reps once again and after a strong couple weeks of practice, the opportunity presented itself.
And boy, did he run with it.
“He’s finally running at his top speed and not thinking about it,” said HTA head coach Matt Hassett. “This is only his second year of football and he’s really stopped thinking about it and is just going and he’s damn fast.
“He’s reading it better, making his cuts and just not taking his foot off the pedal.”
Seth Poelzer had another terrific performance with three touchdowns out of the backfield with receivers Sam Sloane and Ben Gutek adding receiving touchdowns from quarterback Ryan Petersen.
The Bobcats scored with some impressive misdirection in the backfield leading to a 35-yard run into the end zone early in the contest.
“It was good because we had a couple of starters out due to injury,” said Hassett. “That first score they had was a couple of young guys getting a little nervous and making a mistake, but they settled down and we started playing better after that.
“They didn’t move the ball much after that, it was pretty much two-and-out the rest of the way.”
HTA was coming off a bye week and had to scramble to find someone to play against in the midweek clash after its original opponent cancelled.
“You really don’t want two bye weeks in a row,” Hassett said. “I know we’re going to have one at the end because Strathmore is Tier III now, so there will be no zone semifinal, we’ll go right to the final and play whoever the Rocky View rep is. I didn’t want three byes, for sure.”
Before playoffs kickoff, the Knights conclude the regular season with a road-heavy schedule.
The Knights will be in Cochrane to battle the Cobras on Oct. 7, to be played at Bow Valley High School with the Cochrane field under construction. Cochrane, a Tier III powerhouse, has declared for Tier I as of this week.
HTA is at Cardston and Raymond the following two weeks.
“Those next few weeks we really will be tested,” the coach added.
