OLDS — The Olds Huskies are in the playoffs, despite having a losing record.
The peewee football team takes on the Stettler Panthers this Saturday, Oct. 19.
It’s a rematch for the two teams who faced each other in Stettler in September, when the Huskies were doubled 31-14.
However, these may not be the same Huskies the Panthers faced last month.
The Huskies finished off their regular season with a dominant 44-14 win over Drumheller on Oct. 12, improving their record to 1-5.
Huskies head coach Dennis Yurchevich says the team came out firing on both offence and defence, scoring touchdowns on their first three possessions.
“Offensively, (we) were able to spread the ball around between multiple ball carriers, as four different players scored,” Yurchevich wrote in an email.
“Defensively, they played a very strong game, holding Drumheller to only one TD in each half.”
It's been a tough learning curve for the Huskies.
On Oct. 5, they were pounded 50-22 by the Rocky Mountain House peewee Rebels.
“The way the league changed this year with moving everybody from 12-man down to nine-man, we will have two playoff games guaranteed this year,” Huskies head coach Dennis Yurchevich said during an interview with the Albertan.
He explained that during the Oct. 19 weekend, the league will hold a “balancing round.” Each of the 10 teams in the league will play a game to determine playoff seeding.
Then the following week, each team will play one playoff game.
After that, there’ll be two weeks of playoffs.
“Theoretically, three weeks from now, the season will end, but if we were to have a miracle and pull it all out, provincial championships are Nov. 9,” Yurchevich said.
The Oct. 5 game was – an interesting one.
The Rebels jumped out to a 44-14 lead late in the second half.
But then the Huskies came back, thanks to some great running by Jared Sahli, including a 90-yard catch and run play that, with a convert, narrowed the score to 44-22 with 9:20 left in the fourth quarter.
Sadly though, the Rebels answered that with another TD of their own, leading to the 50-22 final score.
“We have proven throughout the season that we are definitely a second-half team. We struggle a little bit in the first half, but we definitely come together in the second half,” Yurchevich said.
“If the score was 0-0 going into the second half, we would have been tied at the end of the game.
“This is definitely a rebuild season, but we’re getting there, we’re close.”
Yurchevich said for one thing, the guys are beginning to play as a team.
“They’re starting to realize what their jobs are and that they can rely on everybody else. Now we just need to execute more,” he said.
There are lots of areas for improvement, Yurchevich said.
He named blocking on the offence, the need for outside containment and avoiding over-pursuit of the ball on defence as examples of areas where improvement is needed.
“On special teams, it looks like we definitely need to work on falling on the ball when we get kicks sent our way,” Yurchevich said.
“That hurt us, having those two kicks that we didn’t recover and then they turned around and scored right away. That hurt us bad.”
Yurchevich said there are some “bumps and bruises,” but otherwise, the team is relatively injury-free.
