The R.F. Staples Thunderbirds got back to .500 in the Wheatland Football League with a convincing 45-6 Friday-night home win over the Vegreville Vortex.
Played in front of hundreds of fans at the traditional Friday Night Lights tilt, the T-Birds crossed into the endzone early and often.
“The game was really excellent,” said T-Birds coach Jon Kramer. “The team really prepared hard this week in practice, studied over the weekend and … we really kind of won the game during the week.
“You could kind of tell by the first 10 minutes of the game that the guys were there to play and they were going to get what they wanted out of the night.
“All our players got a lot of meaningful minutes and everyone was able to find some success out there on offence or defence and it was kind of an ideal night.”
After just over 10 minutes in to the first period, Robert Bokenfohr got the first touchdown off a 67-yard run.
That was just a sign of things to come as the T-Birds stacked on 38 more points, more than making up for their Week 1 loss.
“Last week we came off a lopsided score loss and this one was won in our favour,” he said. “We just told the guys to keep working hard week in and week out, that’s kind of what we have to preach to the guys just because half our team is brand new to football pretty much every year.”
While happy with the team’s performance, Kramer said there was always room for improvement.
The team execution will be an area the coaching staff are going to look at as the team heads into two away games.
“The effort is certainly there with all the guys. You can tell they work hard all week and want to be there all week,” Kramer said. “In a game that is kind of lopsided in the score you can get away with a lot of stuff, you can be a little less polished and just be quicker, faster, stronger and find success.
“We know the next two week we’re against teams that have bantam programs, so some of their players will have been playing for four, five, six years of football. So you have to be a lot more polished in your execution.”
Next week the Thunderbirds hit the road for a match up against Cold Lake and a week after that they play in Bonnyville at that team’s Saturday Night Lights event.
“The guys will get another lights experience and then after that we’re home for two more games before playoffs,” Kramer said.
