Few anticipated games in sports live up to the hype, but the Okotoks high school football derby delivered excitement beyond the most ardent fans’ expectations.
The Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) Knights played the role of rude guests as they edged the Foothills Composite Falcons 14-10 to retain the Chrysler Cup in a back-and-forth tilt in front of a crowd of approximately 2,000 Sept. 16 at the Foothills Field.
“There’s no bigger game on our schedule and I’m sure they would say the same thing,” said Knights head coach Matt Hassett. “It’s really unique that now we might see them again, so we’ll just see. It’s great getting the win here and hopefully if we take care of business the rest of the way, we can get home playoff dates and that’s what we want to secure.”
Both teams placed an enormous amount of importance on the inaugural tilt between the Okotoks clubs in the newly formed Big Rock Football League.
“It’s huge,” said Knights runningback Ryder Stone while smiling ear-to-ear. “It’s bragging rights for the whole year.”
The Falcons possessed the more effective offence in the first half, with slotback Taylor Brooks having great success running the ball.
Foothills hit pay dirt on the first play of the second quarter when Brooks scored on a goal-line run, giving the Falcons a 7-0 lead heading into the second half.
The Knights were guilty of taking several penalties in the first half and struggled to get into a rhythm on offence. Hassett credited the Falcons for executing a great defensive scheme to stifle the Knights’ offence.
“I didn’t think we executed very well at all and that was a lot due to Foothills,” Hassett said. “We had a lot of basic penalties that I thought really frustrated our offence. We couldn’t get in sync at all until really almost the fourth quarter, but defence and special teams kept us in it until our offence got on track.”
HTA quarterback Ryan Hassler gained confidence as the game progressed, but the player of the game for the Knights was undoubtedly Stone, who notched both of the team’s touchdowns.
Stone said he caught the Falcons’ secondary off-guard for the Knights’ first score when he lined up as a receiver on a flag route in the third quarter.
“We just ran a flag and the corners had been sneaking up and they got a little lazy because I hadn’t been running routes and then broke free on a flag and was gone,” Stone said. “The second touchdown came down on another flag here that got us fired up and then it was just a walk in to the end zone on a run play.”
Hassett said Stone’s success is a product of his work ethic.
“Ryder is a Grade 11 student who works out really hard in the off-season. He was on the (Alberta) U-18 team with Taylor Armsworthy,” Hassett said. “He’s played a lot of football and he’s worked out really hard so he deserves all the success he’s getting and he did a great job tonight.”
The Knights held a 14-10 lead with 4 minutes left and made several big plays on defence to close out the Big Rock Football League match. HTA linebacker Jadon Schneider elevated to make an incredibly acrobatic interception off a rocket of a throw from Falcons quarterback Taylor Armsworthy.
The Falcons offence got another chance after the Knights turned the ball over. Armsworthy marched the Falcons inside the Knights 25 yard line, but HTA linebacker Peter Hillman made a crucial interception with 1:08 remaining to clinch the victory.
Foothills head coach Greg McLeod said the Falcons did a good job of executing on both sides of the ball.
“Our game plan offensively was to stretch the field and use our speed to our advantage,” McLeod said. “Defensively we’ve got a few guys that we like to focus on.”
“Offensively we had a couple breakdowns that ended up costing us and defensively same thing, we couldn’t have played a better game defensively outside of a few little lapses and that was the message all week: ‘it’s going to come down to one or two plays’ and it did.”
Falcons defensive back Dallas Toso said he was disappointed in the result, but encouraged by Foothills’ improvements from their previous game, a 51-7 loss to Edmonton’s Harry Ainlay on Sept. 9.
“We just needed to execute better on offence,” Toso said. “There was just a couple plays that went bad and we lost momentum.”
Despite losing to their cross-town rival, McLeod said the Falcons can take positives from the way in which they competed.
“We can play with these guys,” he said. “We’ve got a month or so to get ready and hopefully play them again in a final. It’s going to be another battle if we’re lucky enough to execute and get to that point.”
McLeod said he was especially impressed with the performance and display of heart from Brooks and the two-way play of Toso and Devan Karl.
“I’m incredibly proud of our guys. The outcome obviously wasn’t what we wanted, but I couldn’t be more proud to be wearing the Falcons flag,” he said.
The Falcons are next in action on Sept. 23 as they host Rundle College at 7 p.m. In the early game, the Knights travel to High River to square-off with Highwood High School at 5 p.m.
