It was a good omen for the Westlock Thunderbirds football team as they kicked off their Wheatland Football League season with a 22-12 home-turf victory over the Athabasca Pacers last Friday night.
Head coach Jon Kramer noted the boys had to fight hard for the victory, as the team is still a bit rough around the edges after their summer break.
“We stressed all week that first-week football, every single year it’s always the roughest game. We saw a lot of penalties, a lot of turnovers and a lot of substitutions,” he said. “We stressed that if we come out hard in the first quarter and set the tone there, then the rest of the game is going to be manageable.”
The quick-start philosophy was put into action on the field — after a bit of a rough start. The Pacers recovered their own kickoff and the offensive line took to the field.
“The first play went as horribly wrong as any play could go with the on-side kick,” Kramer said. “A few years ago we were a team that would have put our chins down, stared at our shoes and rolled over, but right after that the guys dug deep and reloaded.”
The Pacers couldn’t score, and the T-Birds took an early lead after wide receiver Brendan Mahoney ran in the first touchdown of the season. The conversion attempt was blocked, leaving the score at 6-0.
The Pacers defence then got into the swing of things a bit, forcing the play back into the T-Birds endzone and forcing them to take the safety to make the score 6-2 after a quarter.
The second quarter was when the T-Birds scored the bulk of their points, with strong showings from both the offensive and defensive lines.
Early in the quarter wide receiver Eric Hardinge ran in a touchdown which was followed by a successful conversion to make the score 13-2.
The defensive line put up a good performance as well, forcing the Pacers back into their own end zone for a two-point safety.
Hardinge notched another touchdown for the Birds late in the quarter, which was followed by a successful conversion attempt by Stefan Toivonen, leaving Westlock with a comfortable 22-2 lead going into the second half.
The Pacers came out hard in the second half, running the kickoff to within yards of the goal line. They got the ball over the line on their second attempt, then successfully ran the ball into the endzone for a two-point conversion, for a score of 22-10.
Athabasca’s defensive line pushed the T-Birds back for another two-point safety, but that was all they could muster, and the game ended with a notch in the victory column for the local boys.
Kramer said the highlight of the game, however, had more to do with the mental battles than the physical one. The coaching staff have put a lot of emphasis on the importance of character, both on and off the field, and the Thunderbirds didn’t disappoint.
“We always say that whether you’re up 30 or down 30, the character’s got to stay. It’s true for life and it’s true for football,” he said. “The guys played like that for the whole game. Even when things got chippy and we took some bad penalties, we never lost our character.”
The Thunderbirds will seek to turn their win into a winning streak this Friday, Sept. 16 in Vegreville against the Vortex.
