The Westlock Thunderbirds Football team has clinched first-place in its Tier 2 division with an impressive 40-7 victory over the Vegreville Vortex in Wheatland Football League action last Thursday.
The T-Birds headed out of town to face the Vortex in their last-regular season game of the year, improving their season record to 4-2. Their two losses came during exhibition games to Tier 1 teams.
“The guys are excited. A lot of hard work has gone into this season,” coach Jon Kramer said. “We’ve got a lot of new systems we’ve built on this season, and they’re excited to see the hard work paying off.”
A victory will give the T-Birds a by in the first round of playoffs, which means their first playoff match will be a semi-final in Westlock on Nov. 1 against a team yet to be determined.
Hometown fans won’t have to wait that long to see more action, however, as the T-Birds will play another exhibition game in Westlock this Saturday afternoon.
“St. Paul’s coming to town, and that’s a team we played the first week,” Kramer said. More practice against St. Paul might be a big benefit for the T-Birds, as they may face that Tier 1 team in their final.
There are five teams in each division, so for playoffs the bottom team in Tier 1 — St. Paul — will drop into the Tier 2 post season.
“We’re thinking if we win that one of Nov. 1, we’ll likely play St. Paul,” he said. “For us that will be the third time, so it will be a pretty interesting game.”
Kramer said he has high expectations of the team going into the post-season, since the victories have all come from hard work and sticking to the systems rather than any sort of trick plays.
That strong performance was apparent in last Thursday’s win over Vegreville, he added, especially in terms of the defensive line, which led the T-Birds to victory.
“The defence really led the way,” he said.
Vegreville scored just one touchdown, but that was on a punt return so the special teams were out on the field rather than the defence. Furthermore, two of Westlock’s touchdowns came from interceptions by defensive players Jordan Scratch and Ronald Spiker.
“The defence was playing so well across the board,” Kramer said. “It was a really fun game to coach and fun game to the players to play and find so much success.”
The next home action for the T-Birds will be at the Westlock Elementary School field on Nov. 1 at 1 p.m. against St. Paul.
