Mitch Calvert
The Muskie football team grabbed the early lead, but then gave up several big plays on both sides of the ball en route to a 22-7 loss Friday afternoon to the host Dryden Eagles in Winnipeg High School Football League action.
Things started well for Fort High as a long drive engineered by quarterback Dan Brunetta culminated with a 21-yard touchdown pass to Blake Wepruk to put the visitors up 7-1 after one quarter.
The tide would turn from there, however, as the black-and-gold gave up three unanswered touchdowns while generating little offence of their own.
“It was a game we could have won but they [Dryden] just made a couple more plays than we did,” Muskie head coach Vince Gouin said.
“We had to shift one of our starting tackles around to fullback and the injuries really affected our line play, so we had a hard time running the ball,” he added.
While no less than six players were battling the ’flu bug Friday, Gouin admitted his team didn’t execute on key plays and it cost them in the end.
“One of the members of the punt team forgot he needed to be out there, and we hiked the ball and they ended up blocking the punt,” Gouin noted, referring to the play that resulted in a defensive touchdown for the Eagles.
“Then our quarterback forced the ball a little bit, throwing into coverage, and they made a good play [interception] and ran it back to our 15, which led to another [touchdown].”
Gouin said he saw positives on both sides of the ball, but stressed there certainly is more room for improvement overall.
“Our [injury] replacements did a pretty good job, but a couple times we got caught cheating out and we’re going to work on making little corrections,” Gouin noted.
“We’ll work with the quarterback to make the right read, but he probably played his best game of the season,” he added. “Come the second half, our receivers dropped the ball.
“We’re starting to see double coverage on Blake Wepruk, so the other receivers have to step up and start making more plays,” he remarked.
Despite falling to 1-2 with the loss, the Muskies find themselves tied for fourth place in the Kas Vidruk Division with Dryden, Tec Voc, and Maples.
Sturgeon Heights has been the class of the division so far, tallying a perfect 3-0 record.
The good thing for the black-and-gold is that they’ll have control of their own destiny this week when the Maples Marauders come to town for the annual Homecoming game tomorrow (Sept. 25) at 1 p.m. (the game is being held a day earlier than usual due to Friday being a P.D. Day for district students).
“Their offence is very similar to our offence, and they use a 4-3 defence,” Gouin said of the Marauders.
“But it’s going to come down to line play,” he stressed. “The linemen are going to be the difference in the game from how I see it watching video, [so] whichever offensive and defensive lines dominate the line of scrimmage will win the game.”
