The Thunderbirds are headed to the Wheatland Football League Tier 2 championship game.
Hosting the Vermilion Marauders on Oct. 19, the T-Birds cruised to a 42-14 win to book their spot in the championship against the Athabasca Pacers.
It was the third time in team history the T-Birds had hosted a playoff game, and it marked the team’s second win in that situation, said coach Jon Kramer.
The win was tough for the T-Birds, Kramer said, as the Marauders changed up their game plan from the teams’ previous two encounters.
“They showed us stuff we hadn’t seen much,” he said, explaining nearly half of the Marauders’ offensive plays were in the air, as opposed to the usual one-quarter.
“They executed well and challenged our defence,” Kramer added.
Fortunately, the T-Birds were up to the challenge, and had a few changes of their own to put on display.
The biggest of those changes was moving quarterback Brett Snell out from under centre and making him a runningback against Vermilion. In Snell’s place was Josh Dittmer.
Kramer explained he made that change in order to better use Snell’s talents reading defences and finding holes.
“Our offence is based on the quarterback distributing the ball and not running with it as much,” he said. “Brett is good at reading plays and making cuts, so we moved him to better use him.”
With a different quarterback under centre, the T-Birds didn’t miss a beat, as Dittmer did well under pressure,” Kramer said.
Kramer credited the Marauders with giving the T-Birds a stern challenge.
“Vermilion has a lot of heart,” he said. “They played tough. They signed up to play football, not just win. They were running and chasing us all game, and we knew we needed to play four quarters to get the win.”
Up next for the T-Birds is a trip to Athabasca for the Wheatland Football League Tier 2 championship game on Oct. 26 at 1 p.m.
After the win over Vermilion, Kramer did not know who the T-Birds would be playing this upcoming weekend. However, he said the team will keep putting its focus on what it does well, regardless of its next opponent.
“We keep finding other ways to beat their defences and refining our X’s and O’s,” he said.
