T-Birds shut out Pacers

It was a sweet victory for the Westlock Thunderbirds football team last Friday night, as the rival Athabasca Pacers left the field scoreless.

Westlock's 26-0 win in the Wheatland Football League during the annual Friday Night Lights game improves their regular-season record to 3-0 and puts the Thunderbirds on top of their division.

“I'm excited for the guys. Athabasca has had our number for the last couple of years so a lot of our veterans were really hungry for this one, more than any of the other games we've played,” Jon Kramer, Thunderbirds coach said.

“The defence certainly led the way. They had a hunger to keep the guys off the scoreboard, and we didn't push that as coaches, but they had that hunger there for the second half,” Kramer said.

The game was in Westlock's favour the whole time, with the boys coming out to an early 14-0 lead with a 12-yard run from Jesse Plamondon and an impressive 54-yard dash from Robert Bokenfohr.

In the third quarter, Josh Dittmer and Joe Borris ran 13 and 30 yards respectively for touchdowns. Kramer said while it's good to see the success with the running game, he said the team still has a lot of work on the passing game.

“We know we really have to work on our passing game, and there are so many facets to it it's tricky,” he said. Despite the wet and chilly weather, though, hundreds of fans came to cheer the team on in the Friday Night Lights game. Having the kind of community support required to pull something like that off – countless volunteer hours went into setting up and tearing down the lights – speaks volumes about the significance of this program in the community.

“The whole motivation for coaching is just to enrich these young guys' lives where we can. You can do that without the lights, but the atmosphere adds so much to the experience,” he said.

The Thunderbirds will be playing in Westlock on Oct. 31 for an exhibition game against the Holy Rosary Raiders.“They're ranked first in the province,” Kramer said. “It will be good to gear us up for the second half of the season and we'll see how good is good.”

Kickoff for that game will be at 5 p.m. at the Westlock Elementary School field.