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Crusaders’ season ends in loss to Royals

Oct 24, 2016 | 2:00 PM

It was a rough final game of the year for the JP II Crusaders, who fell 52-0 in their playoff contest in Martensville.

The Royals scored on their first possession to jump out to an early lead but the Crusaders found themselves getting decent yardage as well.

The problem was JP II could only get so far.

“We were ripping off big chunks of yardage,” Crusaders head coach Bruce Yockey said. “We just couldn’t get anything into the end zone. We couldn’t put any points on the board. So Martensville was playing really well and they just kept rolling and pretty soon the points started to pile up in the wrong direction.

“Hats off to them. They played good, solid, basic football and they just beat us from start to finish.”

With the Crusaders season now over, Yockey summed up his team’s season as ‘alright.’

Yockey is proud of his players and thankful for all the work they’ve put in this year, including the coaching staff, and said it would have been nice to have all of his top players stay healthy.

Running back Jacob Stynsky was at about 80 per cent in the playoff loss, plus he missed key games last in the regular season. Blaise Sieban was also not 100 per cent against the Royals, plus Narcisse Mbwebwe couldn’t play at all because of a knee injury.

“Would I have loved to play with our full team and all of our top guys for the entire season? Yeah, I think it might have been a little different,” Yockey said. “But that’s all hindsight. I’m proud of the guys. There’s a good core group here that worked all season long and that’s all you can ask for.”

There is now significant turnover heading into next season.

Stynsky is gone, and much of the offence revolved around him this season. Plus, quarterback Paul Cubbon also graduates, as do impact players Narcisse Mbwebwe, Adam Fransoo, Alex Washkowsky, Spencer Heidel, and Devin McAllister.

It’s surely a long list of names that means next year might be a small step back.

“It’ll be a change in direction for us because we’ll have to be patient,” Yockey said. “It might take us a year or two I think. I look at those [graduating] kids, they’ve played with us since grade eight a lot of them and I look at our Grade Eights coming up [and] we’ve got some good young solid football players. So it might take a little bit to bring them along.”

Yockey said the biggest adjustment will certainly be replacing Cubbon at quarterback.

“There’s no doubt about it,” Yockey said. “Brady Holhoyi backed up [Cubbon] this year and played some minutes and some games and we’ll see how he comes along. We’ll see if [there’s] anyone else we want to work with as well. We’ll approach it with patience and we’ll see how it goes.

“It’ll almost be like when we began the program and we were bringing guys along. But you’ll be surprised. I think some of our (Grade 10 students) will gain some added responsibility. We might even switch a few players to different positions,” he said.

 

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11