Cue the "Rocky" music: The Clavet Cougars clambered from their bus into the hostile environs of Glen Hall Park for their rematch with the Humboldt Collegiate Institute (HCI) Mohawks in nine-man football action on September 30.
The result was both similar to and different from the Mohawks' last fight against Clavet.
The local side trailed until the fourth quarter, gave up a late touchdown and ended up with a narrow victory, as before.
However, the Cougars had far fewer big plays.
"We liked how, for the most part, we took away their quick strikes," stated HCI head coach Shaun Gardiner. "I felt we tackled a little better, too."
Mohawk Josh Giddings stepped in front of two of Clavet quarterback Evan Fiala's offerings and HCI's Dylan Meyer had another pick. Teammate Justin Lefevebvre also had some key knockdowns.
High snaps plagued the visitors. They were able to control some of them, but the offence's timing was thrown off. One snap missed the target completely but was covered by Fiala. Another center miscue came with just 1:51 remaining, but this one was recovered by Humboldt. Three plays later, Mohawk Jonathan Zimroz scored on a five-yard toss with 33 seconds left. Clavet took the ensuing kickoff and four plays to round out the scoring with a mere one second on the scoreboard clock.
The final score was 30-26.
Clavet wasn't the only team to have miscues on offence. On the HCI side, after a 90-yard Treyton Luker touchdown was called back by an offside penalty, Giddings had to concede a safety in the north end-zone as he faced Friday's strong south wind.
Early in the second quarter, an 18-yard field goal attempt never got off the ground. The defence did hold, compelling the Cougars to give up a safety of their own.
Humboldt's first points made the score 10-2.
Later, in the third quarter, a Clavet fumble was given back a little less than two minutes later with a fumble by the home team. The Mohawks also gave up two quarterback sacks and Daegan Engele took a fierce shot to his left side as he threw downfield.
"They brought some heat with a halfback blitz there that we didn't account for," observed HCI D-line coach Tom Schwinghamer.
Nevertheless, Engele scored Humboldt's first touchdown at the 6:41 mark of the second quarter to make the score 10-9. He also plunged in at the 3:58 mark of the third to draw close to Clavet at 18-16. It was Giddings who snatched Humboldt's first lead with a 20-yard touchdown run with just over two minutes left in the fourth.
HCI's defensive backfield coach Gavin Paulsen concluded, "The win is good and the adversity will make us better, but I don't think we have been playing football to our potential. I am stunned at the variance in penalties called, for example. We must have had six or seven times more penalties than them. If we're not careful, that's going to come back to bite us."
Scoring touchdowns for the Cougars were Ryan Downey, Thomas Blahun and Ryan Dickson.
The Mohawk's next action will be next Friday at Warman versus the 2-3 Wolverines, who were 50- 26 losers to Melfort.
