The Westlock Thunderbirds fell 64-0 to Lloydminster’s Holy Rosary Raiders last week, dropping to 0-3 in the Wheatland Football League.
But the good news is that the Sept. 13 loss at Westlock Elementary School ends a stretch of tough teams that the club faced to the start the season.
Coach Jon Kramer said at the start of the season that the Thunderbirds would be playing the best teams in the league in their first three games, so they took advantage of the intensity in this game and treated it as a chance to learn.
“Everybody played a lot of minutes in this game. There was nobody sitting on the bench. A lot of players came through and made a lot of tackles,” said Kramer.
He explained that some of the veterans from last year who might not have played as much had an opportunity this time around to come to the forefront, continuing the strategy at the start of the season to get everybody to learn as much as possible on the field.
As for the new kids, they saw their fair share of play time as well.
“One of our rookies, Connor Woods, tackled a ball carrier. So they threw a pass down and he was covering the guy, he tackled the guy and knocked the football down so he forced a fumble and jumped on it. That was one of the big plays,” said Kramer.
Overall, Kramer said the first eight minutes of the game, when the Thunderbirds were down 7-0, were really good, but then the wheels fell off.
“The team’s still having a lot of fun out there, progressing each week, they’re learning. But we played a really good football team,” explained coach Jon Kramer.
Holy Rosary beat the Barons, also from Lloydminster, 21-9 already, which is also the team that kept the Thunderbirds off the scoreboard in their Aug. 29 season opener.
The next couple of games are on the road with one in Wainwright and the next in Cold Lake. Both teams are 0-2, so Kramer is hoping the Thunderbirds can find their first win of the season.
“When we’re playing these games, we know we’re going to compete in them. But it’s just about finding a way to clean up those mistakes so when we’re competing we still give ourselves a chance to win,” said Kramer about the little mental mistakes that cost football games.
