It was a tough end to a beautiful day in Regina for the Yorkton Bantam Raider Gridders on Saturday as the Gridders lost 33-24 to the Regina Stampeders in the Regina Minor Football Bantam Division.
While the Gridders came out on the wrong end of the scoreboard against a very tough Stampeder team, they were in the game right until the end, reported Darcy Zaharia.
“There were many strong performances on the day,” he said. “The defense flew around all game making the most out of some short fields for the Stamps. The offense moved the ball well at times but could not get into a rhythm enough to finish drives. The Stampeders won the field position battle which was important to them securing victory.
“On offense it was a day for first year standouts including Drew Fleger who ran hard all game including on a very long touchdown that got called back, Parker McDowell showed how much of a weapon he is at receiver on a long touchdown of his own, and Leland Ockochinski dominated the line of scrimmage from his center position.”
On the other side of the ball Zaharia said, “there were too many great defensive performances to highlight them all, but Joey Palagain was in the offensive backfield all afternoon. Owen Watrych and Nick Medved did a good job setting the edge against a tough running attack of the Stampeders, and Jordan Spokowski had an athletic interception that is rare of first year players.”
In the submitted report Coach Alan Kyle said of the game, “I am very proud of how our team played. . . . There was no quit and I saw positive things from every single player. . . . there was improvement with our team and this is more important than the scoreboard.”
