Saskatoon Hilltops silence Rifles
After dominating performance against Winnipeg, PFC crown is immediate goal
By Tom Sargeant’s estimation, the Saskatoon Hilltops played only “36 minutes” of good football Sunday in the Prairie Football Conference semifinal.
Even so, the Hilltops managed a lopsided 58-5 victory over the visiting Winnipeg Rifles at SMF Field.
Imagine, then, what a full 60 minutes would have done, if you were to believe Sargeant’s critical assessment.
But even Sargeant would have to admit that a 12th straight trip to the PFC final is totally acceptable.
“We’ll take it,” said Sargeant, whose team will play the Edmonton Huskies in the 2018 PFC final next Sunday afternoon at SMF Field.
“I wasn’t happy with the way we played in the second quarter — we came down to their level a little bit. That was disappointing, but we had a good halftime and we responded and did what the Hilltops are supposed to do.”
The Hilltops are gunning for an unprecedented fifth-straight Canadian Bowl championship. They are two wins away from possibly accomplishing that.
They’ve managed to secure home-field advantage the rest of the way.
Should they win the PFC crown next weekend, they’ll play host to the Canadian Bowl against the winner of the British Columbia Football Conference/ontario Football Conference.
“We worked so hard during the regular season to get home-field advantage and home-field advantage was very critical today,” said Sargeant, whose team led 26-3 after the first quarter, 26-5 at halftime and 40-5 after three quarters.
“There are things I’m not happy about, but, in playoffs, you just want to keep moving to the next week and we’ve done that.
“I’m just looking forward to getting back to work this week and making this team even better.”
Jason Price led the Toppers with a pair of touchdowns, from 81 yards and 45 yards. He finished the game with five catches for 191 yards.
Josh Ewanchyna also scored two TDS, one on a 24-yard run to open the scoring, and the second on a 34-yard pass. Ewanchyna rushed the ball 18 times for 157 yards.
Tanner Rhode had the other TD on offence. Rhode had his best game as a Hilltop with eight receptions for 193 yards.
Saskatoon racked up 650 yards in total offence compared to 341 for Winnipeg.
Fifth-year Toppers quarterback Jordan Walls completed 18 of 29 passes for 475 yards and four TDS and not one interception.
“Offensively, Wallsy did a great job of finding his receivers,” said Sargeant.
Defensively, the Hilltops also made some big plays. Logan Kelsey-stern had a 117-yard interception return from his own end-zone.
“That was my first one ever,” said Kelsey-stern, who played quarterback in high school. “That was pretty cool.”
It was also pretty exhausting, he added.
“That’s a long way to run. I got to the 30 and thought, ‘All right, somebody’s going to get me,’ and then I saw (a teammate beside me) and I thought, ‘This is real and I’ve got to get going.’ I ended up in the end zone and the boys are there and that was the best part about it.”
Connor Delahey added a 41-yard TD on a fumble recovery.
“We won the plus-minus — we’ve won it all year,” noted Sargeant. “Coach (Jeff) Yausie, coach (Brent) Turkington and coach (Dave) Fisher do a great job of getting these guys ready.”
The Toppers had five quarterback sacks and five pass knockdowns.
“I give us 36 minutes today, so there are 24 minutes we have to give back,” assessed Sargeant. “That’ll be our ice-time come Tuesday night. We’ll work them hard.”