A year after making the North Saskatchewan Football League (NSFL) final, the St. Mary Marauders are going to have to rely on youth to make it back there.
The Marauders finished 1-3 in league play a year ago before upsetting the crosstown rival Carlton Crusaders 32-28 in their opening playoff game.
Marauder head coach Curt Hundeby says the St. Mary football program graduated a lot of players from last year’s team, so there are plenty of new faces.
“We’ve got a lot of excitement with these guys. As a group, we’re pretty young. In fact, we’re really quite young, and so we’ve got a lot of youth, we’ve got a lot of inexperience, but it’s a matter of just letting the handful of veterans that we do have try and set the pace, and each day we just want to get a little bit better. There’s a lot of stuff to learn and a lot of things to improve on.”
Last season, the Marauders used their rush first offense to finish with the second best offense in the NSFL recording 73 points across four league games.
Heading into 2024, Hundeby says he expects to see an improvement in the passing game for the Marauders this year.
“Oddly enough, I actually think our passing game is going to be certainly bolstered from what it has been the last few years when we had like five attempts for two completions…. We’ll throw the ball more than that this year. I like our defense. I think our group of linebackers is a really strong group. I think we’re gonna lean on them a whole bunch. We’re going to work these guys as much as we can to get them better and see where the chips fall.”
With the vast amount of youth in all areas of the roster, Hundeby says he expects the Marauders to have some growing pains as a team, but he thinks the team could provide a surprise in the right circumstance.
“We’ve got to make sure that every day we’re getting better, that we can’t rest on any successes that we’ve had in the past, and that for each guy to find that one thing each day to get better at and work at. The hill to climb this year will be steeper because we have so much youth, but oftentimes with youth comes a lot of enthusiasm and sometimes that enthusiasm surprises you.”
One veteran leader for the Marauders this year is Noah Penney, who plays on both sides of the ball as a lineman for St. Mary.
He says he is looking forward to leading by example.
“I’m excited. There’s a lot of young guys, a lot of potential and excited to learn, excited to play with them and see how they perform.”
St. Mary opens the season in St. Paul, Alta on Sept. 7. The Canadian Tire Classic is Sept. 27.
sports@paherald.sk.ca
