OLDS — The season came to a disappointing end for the Olds peewee Huskies on Saturday, Nov. 5 when they were beaten 26-12 by the Panthers during the league final in Stettler.
Bob Murray, a coach with the Huskies, says the score is not really reflective of the game. It was much closer than that for most of the matchup.
The one runner from Stettler scored in the last two minutes.
"We were right there," Murray said during an interview with the Albertan.
“We were about four yards away from scoring a touchdown and they stopped us.”
Murray said if the Huskies had scored on that drive, the score would have been 19-18, with a possibility for a convert.
Instead, the Panthers got another TD to end up with the win.
The two Huskie scorers were Maverick Murray and Cadler Hallett.
Snowy, slippery conditions were a big factor in the game.
“It was snowy and if you didn’t get a tackle early, you weren’t tackling somebody because you can’t catch up to them when they get outside,” Murray said.
“Neither team could get much going obviously with any type of play in the air like throwing,” Murray said. “It was all hitting and running.”
He said the guy who scored the Panthers’ late TD was virtually unstoppable.
“He scored all three of their touchdowns,” Murray said. “We just couldn’t stop him.”
The loss was a sad end to a great season for the Huskies. They built up a 6-1 record during the season.
“We actually had 11 different people score on offence for a peewee football team,” Murray said. “That’s not normal.
“That just tells you that we’ve been building a foundational type of atmosphere of kids really loving football and being involved in football.”
Murray said about 10 Huskies – including all four captains -- are now eligible to move up to the Olds Amateur Football Association’s bantam Bulldogs
"It bodes well for the Bulldogs going forward, right? Because we move a lot of players and they move some players to the (École Olds High School) Spartans, so it’ll keep that pipeline going,” Murray said.
“We return a good core of players, but obviously, losing your four captains is a pretty big deal.”
Although the Huskies lose those four captains, Murray said the team has some leaders already poised to fill those cleats.
Like others on the Huskies, Murray said the team has been blessed with plenty of interest in the community – lots of kids wanting to come out and play the game.
As a result, during the season, the Huskies often had a much deeper bench than their opponents.
“You know, we got through the two years of COVID and still had kids coming out and wanting to play,” Murray said, adding that’s due to the efforts of parents as well as head coach Dennis Yurchevich and members of the association’s board of directors.
“We had two redshirts this year, but then we also had quite a bit of interest (from) others, but we can’t have them ‘till they’re 10 years old. But I think we’ll see even more and it’ll be fantastic,” Murray said.
Conditions on Highway 2 Saturday were dangerous. RCMP were advising motorists not to travel on it after several crashes occurred, including a multi-car pileup near Ponoka.
“We left early and it took a lot of time coming back,” Murray wrote in an email. “We communicated via the team app to make sure everyone got home.”
