It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
The Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) Knights fought off a sluggish first half to comfortably defeat the Vernon Kalamalka Lakers 21-6 at the John Paul II Collegiate field in Okotoks on Sept. 8.
“They really stacked the box and tried to stuff Ryder (Stone) and it frustrated us at first,” said Knights’ head coach Matt Hassett. “We couldn’t hit our passes to back them off a little bit.”
The Knights turned the scoreless deadlock on its head on the final play of the first half when quarterback Hayden Oberg hit wide receiver Caleb Selders for a 65-yard touchdown.
“It was an isolation (play) so we had the back side and I just launched it knowing my receiver would come up with it,” Oberg said. “Caleb came up big on that one, we had tried it a couple of times and he dropped it, tried it again and it worked out.”
Oberg said he’s getting more comfortable behind centre with every start.
“We’re starting to develop a lot more and I found our plays are starting to come together,” Oberg said. “This being my second game I was a lot more relaxed and was able to slow it down in my head a bit more.”
The six-foot-three signal caller said preparing for the Lakers, who play with American football rules as part of the British Columbia high school football circuit, was a tall order.
“It was hard because we’ve never heard of them and since they were American we were expecting Cover 2 or something,” Oberg said. “It seemed like on the outside we had an advantage.”
As the game progressed, the Knights grew accustomed to the unconventional defence the Lakers put forth.
“Later on we got used to their front and their defence because they were kind of an unorthodox defence that we were facing,” Hassett said. “They were taking a lot of chances with man-to-man zero coverage and you have to beat that with some of your athletes.”
Stone’s athleticism shone through on two lengthy second-half touchdown scampers. With 80 seconds left in the third quarter, Stone followed a couple lead blocks to the right edge and turned the corner untouched into the end zone from midfield.
The Lakers got on the board with a 15-yard toss into the left corner, followed by a missed point after, to make it 14-6 for the Knights with under 11 minutes on the clock.
Oberg took a shot to his mid-section on an option run to the outside, forcing Troy McGee into action. On the next play from scrimmage the Knights’ back-up quarterback handed the ball off to Stone who meandered through a sea of Laker tacklers en route to a 40-yard run to pay dirt.
“Ryder did a great job running the ball and we were able to wear them down a bit I thought,” Hassett said.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Knights limited the Lakers’ offensive gains save for a few missed tackles.
“It was better than the week before,” Hassett said. “Again we were giving up too many first downs.
“They had some pretty good athletes and in the passing game for the most part we shut them down.”
Hassett said the exhibition tilt with the Vernon school gave his team an idea of what facets of the game need to be sharpened as the Knights head into the meat of the regular season this weekend.
“It showed us we have a few things to work on,” Hassett said. “We’ve just got to keep improving our passing game, I think our running game is there, and just not make as many mistakes on the offensive line.”
The Knights square off with the Rundle College Cobras, Friday night at 7 p.m. in Calgary, for their first game of 2012 against a Big Rock Football Conference rival.
For more information and full schedules go to footballalberta.ab.ca.
