But given the recent history between the teams and how close games have been in recent seasons, no one was taking anything for granted.
In the end, though, the gulf between the two teams was just too deep to see a close finish.
The Cyclones built a 17-0 lead at half and rolled on to a 34-0 victory to improve to 2-0 on the campaign. Vanier dropped to 0-2.
“It’s always a tough game when we play them and we knew they’d be up for it and we’d be up for it, too,” said Central coach Colin Belsher. “We had a battle with them at the end of the year last year in the playoff game and I understand that there are a lot of things that go on, but I’m proud of the guys. We have a lot of young guys playing right now with the guys we had graduate from last year, we had a lot of penalties and mental mistakes and I think that comes with the territory when you have younger players. If we can clean that up we’ll be a lot better off.”
As Belsher mentioned, the contest was rife with penalties, even if the game wasn’t exceptionally unsportsmanlike. That saw many a promising drive for both teams come to a scoreless end, adding an element of frustration to the proceedings.
“I think the number of penalties put a sour taste in my mouth because a lot of them were mental, blocks in the back and late hits and things like that,” Belsher said. “We need to be mentally stronger than that, if we can clean those things up we’ll be a lot better off and if we can clean those up I’ll be a lot happier.”
Kaleb Schanoski led the Cyclones offence, including a 55-punt return for a touchdown in the third quarter.
“We still have a lot to work on, a win is a win and we had a lot of penalties and there’s a lot to improve on,” Schanoski said. “But going out there and beating one of our rivals, it was a great team win. Even with all the penalties we went out and played a great game.”
For Vikings head coach Ryan Gottselig, it’s been a matter of teaching on the go as Vanier looks to build experience through practice and games, all with the goal of seeing things improve down the road.
“We’re in a position where skill position-wise we’re very inexperienced, we have a kid trying to learn how to play quarterback for the first time in his life and in his second game ever,” Gottselig said. “He’s trying and we’re trying to execute, but we’re shooting ourselves in the foot a lot. It’s one or two things on every play it seems, we gotta get it cleaned up soon.”
Interestingly enough, the Vikings found themselves off to a similarly slow start last season before steady improvement saw them nearly pull off an upset in the playoffs – Central defeated Vanier 2-0 in the quarter-final.
“Our o-line is more veteran than it was last year, so hopefully we can lean on them a little more, but it starts for us with getting traction in the run game and the passing comes off of that,” Gottselig said of what they need to do to get back to a similar level of play. “We’re not in a position where we can throw it 20, 30 times a game, so we have to get traction in our run game for sure.”
Further scoring information and stats were unavailable as of this writing.
League action continues Friday, Sept. 20 as Central takes on Peacock (4 p.m., Gutheridge Field) followed by Vanier travelling to Weyburn and Swift Current making the trip to Yorkton on Saturday, Sept. 21.
