The St. Paul Lions welcomed the Cold Lake Royals to town for a key matchup in the Wheatland Football League on Oct. 9. The winner would stamp their ticket to the Division One playoffs, while the losing team would be relegated to Division Two.
“I was feeling pretty jacked going into the game,” commented head coach John Lumby. “It was a good week of practice. We seemed to have more of a winning attitude among our players this week. They were very energetic.”
When the ball was kicked off, however, it was the team from Cold Lake who came out of the gates with all the momentum. They established a power running game early, pounding the ball inside with their big running backs. Also, on the offensive side of the ball, St. Paul couldn’t seem to find any traction. By halftime the Royals had amassed a 14-0 lead.
Still, the home team felt they had a chance.
“We came into halftime feeling pretty good,” commented running back Donovan Campeau. “I think the guys felt confident that we could come back.”
Even so, Cold Lake scored two unanswered touchdowns in the third, and added another single to make the score 29-0.
As the last few minutes ticked off the clock in the fourth, the Lions were able to make a good defensive play by stripping the quarterback of the ball and recovering it near the Cold Lake end zone. It was the Lions’ Spencer Graling who came up with the loose ball.
Donovan Campeau was then able to punch the ball across the goal line, making the final score 29-7 in favour of Cold Lake.
Highlights of the game for the Lions also included a Simon Chamberland interception and another fumble recovery by Graling.
As is often the case, much of this game was decided on the line of scrimmage.
“Their big guys, they probably won the day for them, because they were able to run the ball on us effectively, and shut down our run,” Lumby said. “We also weren’t able to pass effectively. We couldn’t really run inside, or outside, or pass. In some of our other games this year, we didn’t score a lot of points, but we did get a lot of yards. That wasn’t the case tonight.”
Next for the Lions is an exhibition game on Oct. 18 in Westlock. Following that, they will enter into the Division Two playoffs.
“Definitely our aim is to come out on top of Division Two for sure,” Lumby said.
