They might have a young team with plenty of players learning the game as they go, but the Peacock Toilers still found themselves right there with the defending 5A provincial football champions on Saturday afternoon,
And while the Weyburn Eagles were able to go on to a 23-6 victory over Peacock in South 5A 12-Man Football League action at Gutheridge Field, there were still plenty of positives to take from the contest.
And on the same token, still plenty of room for improvement.
Weyburn took a 16-6 lead out of the first half and the two teams settled into a defensive battle the rest of the way before the Eagles settled for their 16-point win.
Weyburn improved to 4-1 with the victory, Peacock fell to 2-3.
“Credit to Weyburn, they have a very physical team and they’ve got some guys who really bring it on the o- and d-line, and their running backs, too,” said Peacock head coach Bert Redstone. “That 66 [Owen Istace], that kid can bring a load. That said, we’ve played against great running backs the last two weeks. We’ve seen Central’s Boynton this year, we’ve seen Yorkton’s kid, they all run hard. So we should have been ready for that, but it was just mental mistakes, positioning and things like that.”
Weyburn rotated in no less than seven rushers throughout the game, with Conner Kerr and Isaiah Sanderson scoring first-half touchdowns, while Nolan Uhren had their lone major after the break. Carter Bell finished the day with 10 carries for 67 yards to lead the Eagles’ ground attack, Istace had seven carries for 62 yards.
Peacock battled long fields much of the day, and scored their lone major in the first half on a run by Josh Johnson. He finished the game with 16 carries for 72 yards to lead the Tornadoes offence.
Keaton Doerkson was 8-for-25 passing for 79 yards for the Tornadoes; Kerr 6-for-18 for 111 yards for Weyburn, Sanderson was his favourite target with three catches for 59 yards.
The Toilers will now turn their focus to the final game of the regular season against Swift Current, with Redstone hoping that their showing against Weyburn will lead to an inspired performance.
“I don’t think our guys realize how close they are,” he said. “We’re very competitive with all these teams, but when you have a couple bad plays in football you have to just accept it and move on. If you have your mind linger on those bad plays, you start to have bad body language and then you start playing slow and things start to pile-on. I think a mental reset will help with the game, so we’ll prepare this week and go from there.”
Weyburn closes out their regular season hosting the Vanier Vikings, also on Saturday.
