Crusaders bowl over Muskies

The St. Paul’s Crusaders invaded Muskie Field on Friday afternoon—and certainly left their mark with a 44-0 victory.
The Crusaders racked up big yardage on the ground in the first half and led 21-0 at the break, then went to the air in the second half in adding three more scores to close out the rout.

The Muskies struggled mightily on offence, only connecting on one late passing completion.
“It wasn’t due to one kid’s play, but on every play there were one or two missed assignments offensively and those add up,” Muskie head coach Vince Gouin said of his team’s struggles on offence.
“Anything that could go wrong, went wrong, it seemed like.”
The black-and-gold still were missing fullback Tyler Abma, who was a big part of the team’s running game in the first two weeks of the season. Still, running back Matt DiPiero still scratched and clawed his way to 61 yards rushing on 21 carries on Friday.
“He was definitely our warrior of the game,” Gouin enthused. “He battled hard the whole game, handled all the kicking responsibilities and did a good job, and then he came in as quarterback during the last drive when we needed to mix things up a bit.”
Lineman Tyler Romyn also missed Friday’s game with a neck injury, which was a huge loss on both sides of the ball.
“The St. Paul’s coach actually asked about him after the game,” Gouin noted. “He said, ‘We were all ready to play against that guy because he’s just a force.’
“We didn’t have that big push we’ve had all season up the middle with him in the lineup, and that made a big difference,” Gouin added.
The Muskies, who fell to 2-4 in Winnipeg High School Football League play, close out the regular season against the undefeated Sturgeon Heights Huskies this Friday at CanadInns Stadium in Winnipeg.
Huskies’ running back Kienan LaFrance leads the Kas Vidruk Division with an eye-popping 597 yards rushing and eight touchdowns so far.
The good news is even with a loss, the Muskies can finish no worse than sixth and likely would face the Garden City Gophers in the opening round of the WHSFL playoffs.
The black-and-gold opened the season with a hard-fought 30-21 loss to the Gophers in Winnipeg.