They are the champions
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The Fort Saskatchewan Sting have attained perfection.
The Sting’s season wasn’t a roller coaster, filled with ups and downs, but it did have a storybook ending that saw the Sting win every game, and take the final game — the game that mattered — in impressive fashion.
The Sting toppled the Holy Trinity Trojans 31-7 to attain a perfect 10-0 record— a far cry from the zero-win season the team stumbled through last year.
“It’s a story book, people have said to me — that’s what movies are made of,” said the Sting’s head coach Peter Vandermeulen.
“We thought about folding the team in the off season, but we scrounged together a team, and we finished the season on our own terms. It’s an amazing feeling and a really good way to end the season.”
The actual game was a much harder fought battle than the final score indicates.
The Trojans, on the shoulders of their star running back, were able to keep the score close at halftime, scoring just the third offensive touchdown that the Sting allowed all year, while holding the offence to a substantially below-average 14-point half.
It wasn’t until the second half that the Sting were able to blow the doors off the game, and Vandermeulen credits the way his team has played all year for the win.
“Lots of our guys are used to playing two and three ways, and not come off the field at all. I think Holy Trinity decided to play their best players both ways and they just got gassed, they couldn’t keep up with us in the second half,” he said.
“In the second half, the boys dug really deep and executed the game plan that we wanted to.”
But the win ultimately came down to the Sting being able to do something that no other team in the league could do — shut down the Trojans’ star runner.
“That running back is so good, we knew going in that it probably wasn’t going to be a shut out, that he would probably run for 100 yards,” Vandermeulen said.
“We knew we had to limit him to his success, and that’s how we were successful.”
And the Sting did that well, not allowing the Trojans to score any points in the second half. Vandermeulen said he knew the game was won at the end of the third quarter.
“As soon as we kicked the field goal to go up 17-7, for them to score twice against the defence was going to be tough,” he said.
“From then on, I knew it was ours, and it was an amazing feeling.”
As the game reached its twilight minutes, and the score became more and more one-sided, excitement began to overtake the Sting sideline. It was then that Vandermeulen said his thoughts turned to the Seniors on the team, and how special their last experience of high school football would be.
“All I could think of was the Grade 12s,” he said.
“The heart and soul they put in last year, and they didn’t get anything. This year they got an undefeated season, and it was an amazing feeling.”
aaron.taylor@sunmedia.ca
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