The dream of finishing first in their division evaporated for the Athabasca Pacers with a 34-21 loss to Vermillion last Thursday.
The local football team played in front of their home crowd at Edwin Parr Composite for the first time in a month after playing three consecutive road games. Wins over Westlock and Vegreville and a loss to Vermillion sent the Pacers home with a 3-1 record and an opportunity to secure first place and home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be as Vermillion handed the Pacers their second loss of the season.
“We just didn’t come out very well,” said head coach Pete Burden. “We spotted them 17 points off of turnovers in the first quarter, and that was too big a hill to climb.”
The Pacers bounced back after their tough first quarter and kept pace with the visitors the rest of the way, but they couldn’t make up the ground they had lost.
The coach noted that they had prepared all week to face Vermillion’s speed, but they were still bested by it on Thursday.
“Their speed to the outside is so fast. They beat us with speed every time,” said Burden. “A lot of it was just execution stuff on the defensive side. What we wanted to do was right, we just didn’t take the right angles. We have to work on that.”
In spite of the loss, the coach was once again impressed with the work ethic of his team.
“Effort wise, it was there the whole game. We just made some early mistakes that cost us big,” he said.
The team also enjoyed another great home crowd that flocked to the EPC field to cheer them on. They hope to see that again this week when they wrap up the regular season at home to Vegreville on Friday at 4 p.m.
As always, the team will use the last game to honour their graduating players, of which there are a few this year. Each graduating player will be recognized after the game.
“The post game speeches don’t get any easier. You’ll see a lot of emotion there. Some of these kids have been with me for five years,” said the coach. “They come in as young boys and they leave as grown men. It’s very difficult to say goodbye.”
After that, it’s on to the playoffs for a likely first-round matchup against Westlock. If the Pacers want another crack at Vermillion, they’ll have to get through the Thunderbirds first.
“We expect them to be improved even more. They’ll be pretty hungry.”
