The Yorkton Regional High School Raiders earned their second gridiron victory of the season last Thursday and they did it in fine fashion outscoring Martin Collegiate 48-0 at Taylor Field.
The Raiders went into the contest with a record of 1-3, the win coming a week earlier over Notre Dame 8-0.
Raider coach Roby Sharpe said the record is not as bad it might seem.
"We played some tough teams off the bat," he said, noting they lost to Weyburn, Luther and O'Neil which are the top three teams in the league.
As for the win over Martin, Sharpe summed it up simply.
"We waxed them good," he said. " Martin's not very good."
That said, Sharpe said in practice leading up to the game he tried to instill in his team not to take their opponents lightly.
"I always tell the guys there's never an easy game in this league," he said.
Sharpe said playing in the Regina league means facing tough teams, fed by a minor system in the Queen City which has players on the field at the age of seven.
"We're getting better obviously because we have minor football here," said Sharpe, who added in some respects the system here simply means keeping pace with the Regina juggernaut.
"If we didn't have it (minor football) we've have our (butts) handed to us," he said, adding a few years ago Regina's system boasted 600-700 minor football players. Today they have 2,200.
"And there's lots of ex-Rams and 'Riders as coaches. There's lot of football experience to draw on."
The Roughriders obviously play a role. Sharpe said minor hockey players go and watch the Junior Terriers in hockey "and that's pretty inspiring for them." In Regina the football program has that because of the presence of the Canadian Football League franchise.
"But it's coming along. Look at what we had here seven years ago and what we have here now, it's night and day."
However, against Martin the Raiders rolled to a 27-0 half time lead, and added 21 in the second half as reserve players were given some important game time.
"It was a tough one. We knew we were a better team than them going in," said Sharpe, adding they could see that on game films.
Sharpe said it wasn't a plan to run up the score, but when reserves get to play they want to play hard,"When they don't get the ball in their hands that much, they want to score too," he said. "They want to show the coaches what they can do."
The team's defence again sparkled, with its second straight shut-out. Sharpe said Christophe Zawatsky had a big day with two interceptions and a touchdown in the first half.
Justin Schneider and Dalton Bakke were once again stalwarts on defence, added the Raider coach."They just flowed to the ball," said Sharpe.
The back-to-back wins are starting to build some momentum for the Raiders, said Sharpe.
"We've got a chance to get a few wins here," he said, which could carry the team to a playoff berth.
The Raiders will continue to work toward a playoff berth tomorrow (Thursday), when they return to Taylor Field to face the Miller Marauders at 7:30 p.m..
"It's going to be a tough game, low scoring," predicted Sharpe. He noted the teams go into it with similar records, Miller at 3-2 and the Raiders at 2-3, "so I'd say a low scoring, hard fought game."
