Spartans win Murray-Black Cup

The Neelin Spartans won the Murray-Black Cup 39-13, defeating the Neepawa Tigers in the tier two Rural Manitoba Football League final on Sunday.

The championship win is the culmination of years of work for players, coaches and volunteers.

In 2024, Rob Cullen revived a Spartans program that hadn’t participated in a full season since 2019 due to a lack of players. The revival came with a transition to the RMFL, since they play nine-man ball, unlike the Winnipeg High School Football League, which plays 12-man football at the varsity level.

“It’s been years of work,” said Grade 12 quarterback Sean Kelly. “(We) came in Grade 9 and brought the whole program back, and we’ve been working and working … Grade 12s pulled through, and it just means the world to me.”

This year, former Vincent Massey Viking Jacob Doerksen took the helm after Cullen stepped aside and brought a hungry group of seniors over the finish line.

“You’ve got to give a lot of credit to coach Cullen for this team even existing,” said Doerksen. “Without him, there’s no Neelin football, and none of these kids get this opportunity to have a lot of fun.”

THE GAME

Neelin took the first step to victory before they even played a snap. Emeka Onuke, who finished the game with 102 all-purpose yards, caught the opening kickoff and ran 85 yards for a score.

Moments later, he ran in the first of his four two-point conversions to give the Spartans an 8-0 lead.

“It set the tone,” said Onuke about the touchdown. “I’ve been wanting to get a touchdown on the return for so long this season, and I finally got it.”

Neelin’s blocking, which shone during the game, played a huge role in the opening score.

“All the blocks were there, like every person on the team contributed to that play,” said Kelly. “It was an amazing start to the game.”

Neelin rolled out the run game for the rest of the first half, relying primarily on Onuke and Yusuf Eltawil to get yardage on the ground.

After some early success, Neepawa started to read the play and jumped on runs, slowing down Neelin’s dynamic run game.

Penalties repeatedly cost the Spartans throughout the game, taking back big gains, crippling drives and gumming up the offence.

The two teams battled with the score stuck at 8-0 until the very end of the half.

With 2:39 remaining, Neepawa quarterback EJ Clark dropped what was intended to be a quick kick on third down, resulting in a turnover on downs.

The Spartans turned to Onuke, who brought Neelin to the Tigers’ 25-yard line after back-to-back tough runs that gained big yardage.

On the next play, Eltawil picked up six yards, moving the team into scoring position. Kelly then dropped back and threw a pass to the right side of the field that dropped perfectly over the head of a defender into the arms of Grade 10 receiver Taven Adema for a 19-yard score.

Onuke once again converted on the two-point attempt, giving Neelin a 16-0 lead with 55 seconds remaining in the half.

The high number of two-point conversions was in part due to injury and partially due to strategy.

“We thought about it during the week. Our kicker wasn’t sure whether he would be healthy enough to play, so we schemed up some plays that we thought we would have, and then they did a great job of converting when we called for it,” said Doerksen.

Neepawa went all out to score before the half ended. Clark managed to find Kyson LaPointe on a deep route as the buzzer sounded. LaPointe led the Tigers in yards with 120 on three catches.

While they only managed two scores in the half, the Spartans dominated on both sides of the ball. They completely bottled up Neepawa’s offence, and without so many penalties, they likely would have scored a few more times.

The Tigers put together a drive at the beginning of the second half that threatened to score until pressure by the Spartans flushed out Clark, who threw a ball over the middle that Aiden Moore intercepted with 9:58 remaining in the third quarter.

On the following drive, Neelin’s run strategy paid off. The Tigers’ defence looked tired after doing a great job slowing down Onuke and Eltawil in the first half.

Kelly handed Eltawil the ball on a counter that he took 62 yards for a touchdown. Another Onuke two-point conversion made the score 24-0 and realistically put the game out of reach.

Desperation set in at this point for Neepawa, and they started making more risky plays on offence in an effort to get back in the game.

Clark threw another interception a few drives later on a deep pass that Kelly came down with much to the elation of the home crowd. Almost every player on Neelin’s roster played both sides of the ball in a rotation.

Neepawa’s Jesse Whitlaw did score on a one-yard run with 1:46 remaining in the third quarter. They gave him the ball again on a two-point conversion that he failed to convert, making the score 24-6.

On the following drive, Kelly threw what should have been an interception with 8:24 remaining in the fourth quarter, but Neepawa fumbled the ball, giving the Spartans a fresh set of downs after Kelly recovered the ball.

Eltawil then punched in a two-yard run out of the wildcat formation, and Onuke converted on another two-point conversion thanks to a great block by Moore.

The sequence was game-defining. Neepawa could have stopped Neelin from scoring with the interception and kept gaining momentum, but instead the Spartans scored and put the final nail in the Tigers’ coffin.

On Neepawa’s next drive, an unnecessary roughness penalty brought the Tigers into scoring position, and Zack Morrison caught a pass from Clark to score, making the score 32-13 with 4:13 remaining in the game.

The score felt hollow, and Neelin put the game away with another Adema receiving touchdown with 1:43 remaining that once again proved the efficacy of the run-heavy strategy.

“The run opened it up quite a bit by pulling the safety in and almost cheating him to the offside,” said Kelly. “They were biting on the run to the left so we knew the throw to the right would be open.”

That’s when they knew they had won.

“That last touchdown, Sean boots out and takes a big-time shot and throws a touchdown pass to really seal the deal for good,” said Doerksen.

The Tigers stuck around for the trophy presentation and packed up as the Spartans celebrated the culmination of their season. Many of the Grade 12s commented that they never would have seen this coming when they stepped on the field years ago to start their high school football journeys.

They will need to find replacements for their playmaking Grade 12s graduating at the end of the year, but for now, the team isn’t thinking about that. Doerksen made sure to thank them and all those who made the season possible.

“There are so many people that made such a huge impact in making this team happen,” said Doerksen, who is now a champion in his first season as a head coach. “I got lots of support from inside the building … Our coaching staff is fantastic. You can see from week one to the end, our kids got so much better.”

» rmccarthy@brandonsun.com