Rams and Comets ready to clash under the lights
Shorter days, changing colour of leaves, the LCI Rams and Raymond Comets going head-tohead on the gridiron.
Welcome to things you can expect in southern Alberta in the fall.
As the daylight dwindles with October right around the corner, the excitement factor will rocket in the other direction as the Comets and Rams hit the University of Lethbridge Stadium for a Southern Alberta High School Football League Division A showdown at 7:30 p.m. tonight.
With a double-header of football on the slate — starting with the Catholic Central Cougars taking on the Winston Churchill Bulldogs in Division A play at 5 p.m. — combined with a favourable Friday night forecast of nearly 20C, it’s shaping up to be another memorable night under the lights.
“We feel like we’re prepared, but you never know,” said Comets head coach Darryl Salmon. “You go through everything so it’ll interesting to see what both teams will come out like. I don’t know if we can ask for a better night, weatherwise, so it should be a great atmosphere. So we’re excited. We tell them to get in there and get that first hit out of the way and then you can settle down and play because it ends up being a long game. But I don’t think it’s any better in Alberta than LCI and Raymond and having that atmosphere and those fans and all that kind of stuff and underneath the lights. So this something that most kids will remember, for sure.”
Over at LCI, spirits are equally high.
“Our kids love to play Raymond, it’s a unique opportunity,” said Rams head coach Darren Majeran. “There’s so much that goes on that kind of flies under the radar and this game certainly does not fly under the radar. People get excited and passionate. I’ve had people tell me already this week ‘You guys better not lose this game.’ and I (think) ‘OK, no pressure.’ I think that just speaks to the passionate fan bases. You’re not going to get more passionate fan bases than the good people of Raymond, but I think the LCI fan base is quite intense, too, and they want to see their team to do well and they want to see us put a good product on the field. It makes it fun for the boys.”
The Rams — 4-0 in exhibition play — head into tonight’s game ranked fourth in Tier I in the Football Alberta standings Comets — 1-0 in SAHSFL play after a 57-0 win over Winston Churchill last week — are ranked eighth.
“We’ve taken our lumps in preseason play, that’s for sure,” said Salmon. “We went down to Utah and got beat pretty good and Sandpoint, Idaho came up and we lost a close one there. I think we’re slowly progressing, we just have to get going. We’re young and hopefully getting more in game time.
“All our skill positions on offence is pretty much brand new,” said Salmon. “So that takes a while to get the timing and all that stuff. Our defence, for the most part we have some experience there, but we’re young.”
The Rams downed Calgary Bishop O’Byrne 42-10 in exhibtion play Saturday at the U of L.
“I think the last couple of weeks have been a big confidence booster for us, being able to get all the phases of our game where we want to be,” said Majeran. “So we’re excited going into (tonight). We feel like we can put our best foot forward and give Raymond the best ‘us’ that we can.”
That has been led by the Rams defence.
“Our offence put up points, but I couldn’t be more happy with the defence,” said Majeran. “I’ve always felt that for us to get back to where I want this team to be we have to be run by our defence. We have to be a physical team and I really thought I saw our defence take the next step. We have some hard-working, intense kids on our defence and they definitely showed us what we wanted to see from them.”
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