The Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) Elecs football team charged back from a 21-14 first-half deficit to beat the Moose Jaw Vanier Collegiate Institute Vikings 42-28 at Woodlawn Field on Saturday.
Mark Schott, head coach of the Elecs, said the team talked at halftime about winning the turnover battle in the second half. He said the guys then went out and executed through forcing five turnovers in the final two quarters of the game.
“We had two forced fumbles and three interceptions that we ended up picking off Vanier and if you can force five turnovers in a game, never mind a half, you're going to have a pretty good chance of winning,” said Schott. “Our defence really stepped up and our offence was able to put points on the board and capitalize on those opportunities.”
Elecs receiver Ethan Veroba got his team to within one 6:46 into the third quarter on a run down the seam with quarterback Andrew Kehler finding him on a nice pass. Veroba was able to fend off two or three Vikings' defenders on the run before lunging into the end zone.
“It was an impressive effort on his part,” said Schott. “He dragged a couple of guys with him into the end zone and he's a big body and he's got a lot of power there. So, it was definitely a big spark for us to tie the game early in that second half and we just kept rolling from there.”
Donny Mortenson put the Elecs up 28-21 on a short-yardage play that was followed by a two-point convert by Keaten Tarnes early into the fourth quarter. With about two minutes to go in the game, the Vikings rallied picking off a Kehler pass and running the ball back to the Elecs' 30-yard line. Viking Paul Froehlich punched the ball in with 1:56 left to play before Cole Coroy made the convert to tie the game at 28-28.
The Elecs offence failed to respond on their next possession, so the team punted the football deep into the Vikings' zone. On Moose Jaw's next play, Elec Colten Reed intercepted the ball at the Vikings' 30-yard line and ran it back for a touchdown with Mortenson recording the two-point convert to put the Elecs ahead 36-28 with 1:09 remaining.
“They came out and we ended up stopping them on third down and we took the ball on about our 25-yard line with 30 seconds to go,” added Schott. “Then Andrew threw a screen pass to Donny Mortenson and he was able to break a couple of tackles and run it down about 75 yards for the clinching touchdown. It was quite the finish.”
Schott said the Elecs victory was the team's first since they beat the Vikings 14-7 in Moose Jaw three seasons ago and the only time the club has won at Woodlawn Field with their previous home wins coming at ECS. He said they had a tough week leading up to the game with some players maybe questioning where they were going as a team after a tough road loss to the Yorkton Regional High School Raiders the previous weekend, so it was nice to see the guys respond well.
“A win is very important for all of our players to get the buy in to what the coaching staff has been telling them all season that we have the pieces in place, we just have to go out and show that we can execute and that we can compete in this league,” he said. “Hopefully we can generate some momentum here to finish out the rest of the season. We got Swift Current coming up (Saturday at home) and then we go up to Moose Jaw to play Central right before Thanksgiving.”
