Skip to content

Lady Raiders successful in year one

The first season is in the books for the Yorkton Lady Raiders football team and by every measure it was a highly successful debut. By season’s end, 30 players had signed up.
Gridders

The first season is in the books for the Yorkton Lady Raiders football team and by every measure it was a highly successful debut.

By season’s end, 30 players had signed up.

“We had girls signing up two weeks ago,” said coach Tyrell MacLean, who added when they first launched the team, there were concerns they might not attract enough players to field a team.

MacLean said as the season started there was a lot of very positive word-of-mouth, which helped attract players.

“People were coming up and telling us ‘this is awesome … it’s so cool.’ That was exciting to hear,” he said.

On the field, the Lady Raiders were 1-2-1. MacLean was satisfied with the result given it was year one.

“We’re excited about how we ended up,” he said.

Being a coach, MacLean said they could have fared better with just a little luck, with one of the losses being by a single point and the other by six.

The team improved every time out, said MacLean.

“In our first game, a couple of girls on offence and a couple of girls on defence were making plays,” he said. “By the last game more players were making tackles, making catches, we definitely made a lot of progress.”

The last game was Saturday at Century Field, a 20-6 win over Moosomin.

The visitors scored early, but missed the convert and the Lady Raiders responded on “a long run” by Brooklyn Hannotte, said MacLean, leaving the score tied as Yorkton also missed the convert.

Moosomin looked to be on the verge of taking the lead in the second quarter.

“They broke a long run from their 15,” said the Raider coach, but Caelan MacLean made a touchdown-saving tackle on the Yorkton 10-yard line.

“She came out of nowhere to make that tackle,” he said.

After that the Yorkton defence, led by Julienne Sonara, Makayla Pelletier, Shaia Luce and Cameryn Dubreuil, held the line.

Reanne Prychak gave Yorkton a 12-6 lead on a long touchdown run.

A safety made it 14-6, until the final play of the game when quarterback Austen Dubreuil ran in a TD to round out the 20-6 win.

MacLean said his quarterback had a strong game finding receivers Ashlyn Gnyp, Rachel Bartel, and Bronwynn Money to keep the offence rolling.

“It was great seeing players who early in the year didn’t make a lot of contributions (because of inexperience), getting to contribute and be part of that team win at the end,” said McLean.

Next season (MacLean hopes to have it during the spring), things should only get better for the program.

“We don’t graduate anyone. Hopefully we have the same 30 girls coming back,” he said.