The Estevan Comprehensive School Elecs came within 30 seconds of their first ever win last Thursday afternoon. In their first game of the 2010 season, the Elecs dropped a 15-10 heartbreaker to Moose Jaw's Central Collegiate Cyclones at Woodlawn Regional Park.The home team came out flying, scoring on their opening drive of the game as fullback Justis Grimsrud found the end zone, giving ECS the 7-0 lead.Elecs' head coach, Marco Ricci was impressed by his team team's outstanding start."Yeah the offence did really well, I think they played excellent and executed most of the plays we needed," said Ricci.The defence also came up big for ECS in the opening half, all but shutting down Central's potent offence led by standout quarterback Kahlen Branning.Unfortunately for the Elecs, they couldn't keep the Cyclones off the board forever and in the second half Branning found his game.It was an uphill battle for the Elecs in the third and fourth quarters as they just couldn't get anything going."I think it was a combination of being a little bit tired and we're a little bit low in numbers, so we had a couple guys going both ways and then when you run into injury problems, you've got to fill two spots with one guy," said Ricci of his squad's second half troubles.With the ball deep in their territory late in the second half, ECS recovered a fumble, which would have effectively ended a Cyclones' drive that eventually led to a field goal, but the referee claimed the play had been blown dead before the fumble. Needless to say, Ricci was none to pleased with the ref's explanation."He said it was an inadvertent whistle, which is very frustrating as a coach because we recovered it, which caused us some grief but you've got to take it sometimes."The Elecs were able to hang onto that 10-8 lead until the final minute when Branning found a receiver in the end zone with just 30 seconds remaining, giving Central the 15-10 victory.After the game Ricci explained the emotion that his team was feeling after coming so close to their first ever win."Pretty devastated. For them to come late in the fourth quarter with 30 seconds left and score a touchdown and steal the win from us"Even though they lost, the Elecs put forth a very strong effort and have lots to build on going forward into week two of the season, and Ricci says there are some positives they can take form the loss."(Central) is one of the elite teams so we know we can play in this league," he said. "It sounds like it will be pretty tight so we've just got to work a little bit harder and hope that we get our guys back from injury and we'll be able to compete."The Elecs will now go back to the drawing board and prepare for this Friday's tilt against the AE Peacock Tornadoes on Friday in Moose Jaw.The Tornadoes, who went 6-0 last year, also lost their season opener 22-0 at the hands of the Vanier Vikings.
