The Thunderbirds are back in the win column.
Hosting the Vermilion Marauders in their last home game of the Wheatland Football League regular season on Sept. 27, the T-Birds overcame an early deficit to march off the field 30-7 winners.
It was not the blowout the T-Birds recorded in their season opener on the road in Vermilion, but coach Jon Kramer said he wasn’t really concerned that the offense couldn’t recreate its magic. The win elevates the club to 3-1 on the year.
“We’re happy with the score,” Kramer said. “It wasn’t as many points, but we knew that would happen because they had two weeks to study our video.”
What he said was more important was how the defence held the Marauders to only seven points, all of which came on a touchdown in the first quarter.
The T-Birds came into Friday’s game having practised differently than they had earlier in the season. Kramer said the team needed to relax a bit and focus more on team unity and morale, so they held fun practices during the week.
It appeared to help, he said, as the players were more relaxed, confident and loose on the field.
However, that did come with a bit of a price, as the team was a bit “slow out of the gate.”
That relaxed attitude, combined with the early Vermilion touchdown, led Kramer to call a timeout early in the first half to set the team straight.
“Relaxed attitude became relaxed play,” Kramer said. “The thing about football is you need an aggressive mindset. So we talked and changed the tone and got them to be aggressive on the line of scrimmage.”
It must have worked, as the T-Birds were able to score two touchdowns by the end of the half to take a 14-7 lead.
Two more touchdowns with two-point conversions in the second half kept the T-Birds in control en route to the win.
What stood out for Kramer was how the team played like a unit and not a collection of individuals.
An example of that was when quarterback Brett Snell was forced to sit out for a few plays in the third quarter and Jesse Plamondon filled in.
It all shows how the team is in good shape as the playoffs approach in three weeks.
“The theme for the rest of the season is ‘from good to great,’” he said. “We know we have a good team and a good system.”
