Jason Kerr
Daily Herald
The battle between the Marauders turned into a battle of the offences at Max Clunie Field on Thursday.
The St. Mary Marauders fell 48-29 to the Walter Murray Marauders in a game where the two teams combined for more than 800 yards from scrimmage. St. Mary head coach Curt Hundeby gave credit to his defence for hanging in there with a tough opponent.
“Their offence is pretty difficult to deal with,” Hundeby said.
“Their two running backs, good grief, they were difficult to guys to contain. They were slippery, they were fast, they were strong, and their o-line was good. Their o-line did a really good job, so our defence had a really tough go of it today.”
St. Mary stayed close for one quarter before Walter Murray pulled ahead for good in the second. The visitors led 21-15 in the third quarter when Walter Murray took over inside St. Mary territory after recovering a punt after the officiating crew ruled it bounced off a St. Mary returner.
That led to a 27-yard rushing touchdown from Lucas Hawley—one of four on the day for the Walter Murray running back—and gave the visitors a comfy 27-15 lead.
Hundeby said St. Mary showed plenty of fight, but needed to be more consistent over four quarters.
“There are a lot of positives,” he said. “The biggest takeaway that our guys need to roll with is that if we can battle for four quarters, we can play with most teams. When we get down and start to hang our heads, that’s when things start to really spiral.
“I mean, in Canadian football, points can happen in a real hurry so if we’re down by a couple of scores it’s not the end of the world. We need to be able to just keep battling.”
Brandon Arabejo led the St. Mary rushing attack with 62 yards on 10 carries, while Kaleb Fontaine led the St. Mary receiving corps with five catches for 65 yards.
Quarterback Cohen L’Abbe threw touchdown passes to Caleb Eckert and Jeremiah Sullivan, and rushed for another. The St. Mary quarterback threw for 160 yards in the air, with three interceptions.
Hundeby said the offence played their best game of the season one week after getting shutout by the Carlton Crusaders.
“They were much most consistent, especially in the pass game,” he said. “(The) run game, I thought we blocked a lot better today than we had in the past.
“This week we really challenged the guys to battle for four quarters, and we came a lot closer today than we have any other game. It wasn’t quite a full four, but we were a heck a lot closer than we were. I know we threw a couple interceptions, but a couple of them were tipped passes, I thought for the most part our QB put the ball where it needed to be.”
St. Mary’s Hayden Cyr kicked the only field goal of the game—a 26 yarder midway through the third quarter. He also added two converts.
On defence, DB Reiner Docor led the way with one tackle and a fourth quarter fumble recovery he returned for a touchdown. Marcus Corrigal, Liam Blechinger, Hayden Cyr, and Riley Parenteau tied for the team lead in tackles with four.
Walter Murray running backs Grayson Gignac and Lucas Hawley did most of the damage for the visitors. Gignac rushed for 149 yards and nine carries and scored two touchdowns. Hawley ran for 172 yards on 15 carries with three touchdowns. He also caught two passes for 38 yards and another touchdown.
Mateo Gedir led all Walter Murray receivers with two catches for 41 yards, including a 31-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter. Quarterback Andrew Hawley completed seven of 13 pass attempts for 116 yards and two touchdowns.
Thursday’s loss was an exhibition game and had no impact on the North Saskatchewan Football League standings. They’ll play the Martensville Royals in the first round of the playoffs after Martensville defeated North Battleford Comprehensive 28-6 in the regular season finale.
@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca
