The Sacred Heart High School (SHHS) Saints probably had so much fun winning two weekends ago against Melville in their first home playoff game in some 25 years, they decided they'd do it again.
This time, they found themselves on the longest road trip for a playoff game the team has taken going back 25 years.
Part of it involved staying overnight in a nice hotel in Swift Current.
Nearly 40 teenagers plus a few coaches stayed the night.
When your starting quarterback says he slept just fine on the eve of the football team's biggest game in years, it's probably a pretty good sign.
"I slept so easy," recalls SHHS quarterback Travis Buzinski, four days after his Sacred Heart Saints rolled over the Maple Creek Redmen in extremely unfamiliar territory at Maple Creek.There was pressure involved.
Apparently Buzinski felt none of it.
Buzinski did not even try to hide the fact that he knew that going into the game.
"Everybody's counting on you not to screw up," the QB insisted.
Not having three of the team's frontline players available due to soccer provincials that same day wasn't enough to faze the 16-year old pivot.
Even more impressive was that this was his first experience playing a big game nearly seven hours away from home turf comfort.
He said on Monday that he spent most of the road trip studying the team's playbook.
They won the game too, 33-14.
"It was actually really good," said Buzinski, looking back on his first playoff start as quarterback with the Sacred Heart Saints. "My offensive line was really good."
For someone with no previous experience, he said it didn't take him long to build up some confidence.
"I got into my groove a little bit. It was fun. It was really fun."
Buzinski told the paper that it got to the point during the game where his coaches let him air it out a little bit.
He said he started hitting his receivers to hopefully throw the defence off a bit.
Then, he said, "the wind kicked in" and he had to go back to the ground game.
Also, he said Maple Creek began the game playing zone defence, and in the second half, they began to blitz.
"In the second half, they started blitzing pretty crazily.
With the win, Sacred Heart now looks to their second home playoff game in the same season as they host Deslisle.
"I'm looking at it like it's any other game," he testified.
Tailback Preston Liebrecht did what he's been doing all season long providing most of the team's offence, however things did not start out well for him, either.
"I fumbled the football on the first play of the game," he said, almost sounding like it was even funny at the time it happened. "I responded well (however)."
Four touchdowns later and Liebrecht did just that.
For the second week, the Saints offence was led by its rushing game. Preston Liebrecht rushed for 348 yards and three touchdowns. His kickoff return for a touchdown brought his total to four touchdowns on the day.
Liebrecht was the only player who stayed behind that weekend. While a few teammates opted for the soccer provincials, Liebrecht told the paper that he felt he needed to hang out on the gridiron. "Three guys were going to soccer," he explained. "I wanted to play football because we (already) had a good shot at (soccer) provincials.
It was a win-win situation for SHHS because both teams won that weekend.
Liebrecht had four touchdown runs and Morgan Giroux had one.
On offence, SHHS appeared to be all set and looking good. The defence, however, had their work cut out for them.
They had to adjust to a Maple Creek offence that utilized three running backs and confusion to slow down opposing defences. "They play a double wing offence that no one in our league had played (or likely even seen before)" said Saints head coach Trent Senger.
"We had an idea of what they ran, but until our guys saw it, it was tough to adjust to. We wanted our guys to be aggressive and hit anything in a brown uniform that came through the line. It's hard to know which of their guys have the ball, so our game plan was to hit them all and sort it out after the whistle."
In addition to their run game, the Redmen had success all season throwing a screen pass to try to take advantage of aggressive defensive pressure.
Saints cornerbacks Travis Inglis and Brock Liebrecht, in particular, did a good job of reading the play and finishing their tackles, notes Senger. The defence was led by Nathan Ortynsky and Dakota German who combined for nearly 30 tackles. Travis Inglis had 11 tackles and 1 interception.
"It was great to see different guys step up and fill in" said Saints coach Scott Musqua. "We saw several guys raise their game today, and being able to hold both Melville and Maple Creek to two scores says a lot about our depth and how guys are really buying into our system."
It was a perfect day for football too, 12 degrees with some sunshine. Liebrecht noted that SHHS had some interesting offensive tactics to deal with when Maple Creek had the ball.
"Their offence was really odd," he said. "They had lots of screens."
Scott Musqua, SHHS coach, said he is confident enough in the team's abilities that he said he didn't have much to be concerned about despite playing a pivotal game seven hours outside of Yorkton, despite running into a talented Redmen squad.
"To be totally honest, I am so confident in our abilities. Because of the confidence I knew there was no way they were going to mount a comeback," he says.
"(However) they ran probably the best screens we've ever seen."
