MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- It stands to reason that when a football team is playing in extremely windy conditions, much of their attack is going to be focused on the ground game simply due to how unpredictable passing can be.
The Peacock Tornadoes apparently didn’t get that message.
Tornadoes quarterback Owen Varjassy had a game for the ages against the Estevan Elecs on Saturday afternoon at Gutheridge Field, overcoming wind gusts that hit the 90 km/h range to throw for seven touchdowns and nearly 400 yards on the day.
It all led to Peacock taking a 48-30 victory and improving to 2-3 in the South Rural Football League, while Estevan fell to 0-5.
The fact things went as well as they did for the Tornadoes through the air was in part due to how Varjassy throws the ball -- something Peacock’s coaching staff took into account when game-planning for the tough conditions.
“We noticed over the season that Owen throws a real tight, low ball, so his spiral is nice and tight and he throws a low ball naturally,” Tornadoes head coach Bert Redstone explained.
“We didn’t know if he’d be able to throw it that well into the wind, but it didn’t really affect his throwing… you could tell going into the wind on film there were some balls underthrown and going with the wind he was trying to take something off it, but generally speaking his accuracy was really good. Everyone was really surprised by that, 394 passing yards? Wow.”
Kingston Potosme-Usher was the chief beneficiary in the receiving corps, hauling in five catches for 141 yards and three touchdowns. Nate Measner caught four balls for 129 yards and one major, while Leighton Dufour had only two catches for eight yards, but both were short-yardage touchdowns. Malcolm Hunter had the Tornadoes' other major while catching three passes for 70 yards.
All told, Varjassy would go 17-for-28 passing and average 23.2 yards per completion.
“Credit to the kids, we’ve always prided ourselves on being able to play in sloppy weather games and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t,” Redstone said. “But going into the week, we just said to the guys to expect it, here’s the game plan if we can’t throw, how we’re going to run, are we going to kick the ball low… it all worked out really well.”
Peacock had a comfortable 35-7 lead at halftime, but Estevan didn’t go quietly thanks to a fourth-quarter surge.
Dorian Sifton (three-yard run), Justin Folbar (74-yard pass-and-run) and Mason Beriault (seven-yard pass) all had majors in the final 12 minutes. Khalifa Elshein scored their first-half touchdown and led the Elecs with seven catches for 141 yards.
Sifton took the majority of reps at quarterback for Estevan and was 8-for-10 passing for 208 yards.
The Tornadoes will now turn their attention to their final game of the regular season on Thursday when they travel to Balgonie to face the undefeated Griffins. Estevan will have an equally as tough task when they travel to Weyburn to battle the second-place Eagles.
