Muskies fall to Crusaders

They’re on the board, but still not in the win column.
The Muskie ‘A’ football team registered its first points of the season, but a stingy St. Paul Crusaders defence and nagging mental errors cost them a 32-7 defeat Friday afternoon in Winnipeg.
“The score was not indicative of the game because it was a lot closer than that,” said Muskie head coach Bob Swing, whose team actually led in the first quarter before the Crusaders came alive.
Quarterback Andrew George hooked up with receiver Kevin Gemmell for a 30-yard touchdown strike to make it 7-0 for the Muskies, but St. Paul rebounded to lead 14-7 at the half in a game played in what Swing described as “gale-force winds.”
“There was a lot of strategy involved,” said Swing, who pointed to a fourth-quarter fumble by his team with 10 minutes to play and trailing 22-7 as the turning point.
“We had the wind in the fourth and we had just got the ball back on a turnover,” he recalled. “But we fumbled the first play after that.
“If we had scored and then pinned them deep on the kickoff, we could have had them.
“St. Paul’s a very good team and threw the ball very well. But the guys know we let this one slip away. We beat ourselves,” Swing added.
The Muskies—0-2 in WHSFL play and 0-3 overall—will try for their first victory this Saturday when they visit the Churchill Bulldogs in Winnipeg.
Kickoff is set for 2 p.m.