Jamie Mountain
Records are meant to be broken and a few of them fell in the Muskie football team’s rout of the Churchill Bulldogs here on Friday afternoon.
Muskie quarterback Brady Meeks was outstanding, setting new single game Currie Division (‘A’) records in both passing yards and touchdowns thrown in his squad’s 66-19 thrashing in their Winnipeg High School Football League home-opener.
Meeks wound up throwing for 349 yards and six scores in the lopsided win, breaking the records previously held by Colin Hornby of Murdoch McKay (309) and Josh Weitz of the Maples Marauders (five), respectively.
“It is very humbling to break those records,” Meeks enthused.
“I’ve known the records for a while and I’ve always wanted to break them and I made promises I would.
“With that being said, I couldn’t have done it without my brothers on this team,” he stressed.
“They mean more than words can express to me.”
“I never knew, he actually was the one that told me during the game,” Muskie co-coach Vic Davis said of Meeks breaking both records.
“So I said, ‘You got one chance to do it and after that we’re letting [rookie pivot] Nolan Antonick play’.”
It didn’t take long for the Muskies to open the scoring in Friday’s rout of the Bulldogs, as running back Sean Huziak rushed in a major from just a few yards out on the first possession of the game.
Meeks then began his impressive offensive performance by connecting with wide receiver Carson Noga, who went for lengthy TD run to push it to 14-0 (the extra point was good).
The Muskie pivot also found wide receiver Dale Berg with a 55-yard catch-and-run to extend it to a 21-point cushion (the extra point was good).
But not giving up, the Bulldogs’ talented running back caught the Muskies’ defence off-guard and rambled for two lengthy touchdown runs to trim it to 21-13 after 12 minutes of play.
Huziak then punted a single early in the second quarter after Churchill had fumbled the ball on their first possession and the Muskies recovered it.
Later, Meeks found Huziak for a 15-yard strike as the black-and-gold went up 29-13 (the extra point was good).
Noga and Berg also were the recipients of lengthy TD passes while Huziak rambled in another major as the Muskies carried a commanding 47-13 lead into halftime.
“The team was clicking so well because everyone was ready and mentally prepared for Churchill,” Meeks noted.
“We spent lots of time practising their offensive plays so we could stop them defensively and the offence took care of itself, as we knew it would.”
In the third quarter, Huziak rambled for another lengthy major to push it to 53-13 (the extra point was blocked).
The Bulldogs (0-2) threatened to score later in the frame, getting to within a few yards of the endzone but an impressive goalline stand by the Muskies held them at bay and turned the ball over on downs.
Meeks then hooked up with Noga for another major early in the fourth for his final passing TD of the game before the Bulldogs rambled for a touchdown to trim it to 59-19.
Meeks then went from quarterback-to-receiver as rookie pivot Nolan Antonick connected with him on a 44-yard major to round out the scoring (the extra point was good).
“We couldn’t do anything wrong there, it was pretty good, I was pretty happy,” Davis said of his squad’s performance against Churchill.
“The kids played really good, I think we were pretty confident when we went in there. I thought we played pretty flawless, we didn’t make a lot of mistakes.
“We were able to run, we were able to pass, so I guess that’s something we gotta build on in the coming weeks, he added.
Huziak rambled for 200-plus yards for the second straight game, finishing with 261 on 12 carries and punching in three scores.
He also had one reception that he turned into a touchdown and went 6 of 9 on extra-point attempts while also racking up 137 yards on four punts.
On defence, Colton Allen led the way with 16 tackles while Aaron Scheibler had 14 tackles and two forced fumbles.
Davis lauded the play of his entire offensive line, who again came up with some great blocking that allowed Meeks and Huziak to have the explosive offensive performances they did against the Bulldogs.
“In practice, the kids are doing really well. I think the first week or two the offensive line was making some mistakes, you know, just trying to get things to work and I think we were working out some of the kinks,” he noted.
“But the offensive line [on Friday] was just working perfectly, so I’m pretty happy with them.
“Meeks and Huziak and everyone else wouldn’t have had the game they did if it wasn’t for the offensive line, he stressed.
“So they should get all the credit.”
The third-place Muskies are slated to resume WHSFL action this Friday when they welcome the fourth-place Tec Voc Hornets (1-2) at 3 p.m. at Fort High in their annual Homecoming game.
Fort High then will end the regular season with a pair of road games against the second-place Maples Marauders (2-0) on Oct. 10 before concluding play against the last-place Neelin Spartans (0-3) on Oct. 17.
Davis stressed that his squad shouldn’t get too overconfident with a pair of blowout wins under their belts and will have to work hard to maintain their winning ways and culture moving forward.
“I don’t think we can just live off this, we gotta keep going and hopefully we can do the same for the Homecoming game,” he remarked.
“Each game is gonna get harder and harder and hopefully we can get better and better,” he stressed.
“Each week we put in different plays, we work on stuff if we need ’em and so far for [Homecoming], because the offence played really well [Friday], offensively we didn’t have to do anything too tricky so we just keep going.
“So hopefully each week we’re going to get stronger and stronger and when the competition gets tougher, we’ll be able to throw some different things at the other teams,” concluded Davis.
