Rams rally for league title
LCI erases 14-0 Cardston lead
They didn’t take the easy route to get there, but the LCI Rams have once again captured the 63rd T. Eaton Trophy. The Rams rallied late to defeat the Cardston Cougars 23-14 in Southern Alberta High School Football League A Division play Friday night at the University of Lethbridge Stadium.
On a night where a brutal north wind pelted the stadium, the Rams erased a 14-0 halftime deficit and took their first lead of the game with a 20yard field goal from Jace Edwards with a little over two minutes to go, making it 17-14.
Then, facing those same gusts from the north, the Rams fashioned one last drive that running back Joseph Nilsson capped off with a goal line plunge to complete the scoring and earn the Rams their 32nd T. Eaton Trophy for Division A — 30 solo and two shared.
The late surge set the table for another exciting, close game, but not quite in the eyes of Rams head coach Darren Majeran.
“I disagree with you, I’m getting sick of them,” he said. “I think we have to find something to correct our first half because we’re just coming out so flat and I don’t think we’re giving ourselves a fair chance. We won today, but that catches up to you sometime and we were lucky that didn’t catch up to us tonight. I’m glad the boys played hard in the third and fourth quarter, but we have to fix what we’re doing wrong in the first and second quarter.”
The Cougars opened an early lead when quarterback Ty Schaffer plunged in from four yards with 7:11 left in the first quarter and took a 7-0 lead on the ensuing kickoff thanks to a 65-yard single.
Cardston moved up 14-0 at the end of the first quarter on a 31-yard touchdown pass, this one from Schaffer to Adyn Card.
The Rams broke their goose egg with 4:47 left in third when quarterback Zach Jacobs found Brandon Laycock to make it 14-7 and tied it up a little over two minutes later when Jacobs found Tanner French from 25 yards out.
“It was really hard to go against the wind, to be honest,” said Majeran of the second half turnaround. “I think we stayed patient with the run game tonight. We thought after the first half that perhaps we hadn’t been playing that bad, we just weren’t being opportunistic. We tried to stay the course with the run game and sometimes being patient with the run doesn’t help you and you just end up getting stuffed. Those kids (Cougars), play so hard that they were really bottling up our run, but we felt like if just stayed patient we could move it and we were eventually able to break through.”
Edwards put the Rams ahead for good with his field goal with 2:13 to go before Nilsson capped off a final second drive to round out the scoring.
“It was pretty good,” said Nilsson. “I could have held onto the ball a little bit better during the second half. But eventually things starting moving and as the wind died down our passing game got better. We started to get momentum and move the ball.”
That, and dealing with the Lethbridge wind.
“It was all over the place,” said Nilsson. “Usually if it’s windy we’ll play a lot of the run game and if some passes are flying we’ll throw some passes. But that wind is a real bugger sometimes when it comes to big games like that.”
The night was also a chance for the Rams to honour their senior players.
“I’m proud of these seniors, just how they do it,” said Majeran. “It’s just a different kid all the time, and I like that. I think in years past we kind of knew where it was going to come from, John Evans, Tanner Sudo, Tanner McLachlan, I could go down the list. You kind of knew who was going to take you there in the end and this year it’s a new kid every week and it makes it a little harder to call plays because you don’t know who exactly is going to break one for you. But we showed tonight, again, that we have plenty of guys who want to play the ball.”
It earned them their 30th T. Eaton Trophy
“We’re happy with the Gold Football,” said Majeran. “If we’re playing Tiddly Winks, I’m playing to win. But we have our goals set of making a playoff run and we have an eye on that provincial championship. That’s why we’re here. It’s nice to win a Gold Football, but we’re not done. We want to keep playing.”
In other SAHSFL play Friday night, the Claresholm Willow Creek Cobras topped the Chinook Coyotes 28-17 in Claresholm.
Ethan Perry ran for 127 yards on 10 carries and scored on a 67-yard punt return to pace the Cobras.
In interlocking play in Taber, the W.R. Myers Rebels blanked the Winston Churchill Bulldogs 35-0.
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