Oak Park overwhelms Crocus Plains

A tough season for the Crocus Plains varsity football team in the Winnipeg High School Football League continued with a brutal 70-0 loss to the undefeated Oak Park Raiders at Neelin on Thursday.

“We knew what we were up against. That’s a really good team, the class of the province and huge kudos to them; they’re good every year,” said Crocus Plains head coach Mason Kaluzniak. “They’re what we strive to be, and we’re not quite there yet and we know that.”

The Raiders (6-0) are considered to be one of the best teams in the province for very good reason. Through six games, they average just shy of 50 points per game on offence while allowing just nine points per game. The win against Crocus is the second time they’ve blanked their opponent this season.

While the mood was low on the Crocus Plains side of the field at the end of the game, there were a few positives during the contest.

The defence started the game with a three-and-out, thanks in large part to a great tackle in the backfield by Easton Durgan that stalled the Raiders’ attack. Unfortunately, the Plainsmen’s offence failed to find any meaningful yardage on the ground on their first drive.

Durgan also came up with a strip and fumble recovery in the second quarter.

“You know I thought our defence actually played well,” says Kaluzniak. “It’s funny to say, because you look at the score and think our defence didn’t show up, but … it’s tough when your defence is always on the field, they’re tired and we are putting them in bad situations.”

Oak Park’s starting quarterback Blake Dagg and receiver AJ Bangura were out with injuries, meaning Rylan Baylis had to step in at quarterback.

On their second drive of the afternoon, Oak Park Adonis Glaud found the end zone on a 22-yard run up the middle that gave the Raiders a 7-0 lead with 4:25 remaining in the opening quarter.

Next, the Oak Park defence made its presence known. Defensive back Treysen Ideaho snagged an errant pass by Jake Cory and took off down the field, extending the lead to 14-0.

“Very good blocking,” said Ideaho about the pick-six. “That was my defence’s touchdown, that wasn’t even me honestly.”

Oak Park kicker Rylan Patching-Bowen actually kicked the first two extra-point attempts through the uprights and all the way onto 13th Street, causing issues for passing traffic before the coaching staff told him to take a bit off of his booming kicks.

On the kickoff after the second Oak Park touchdown, he blasted the ball into the Plainsmen’s end zone, forcing veteran safety Will Cantelo to take a knee, surrendering a point in the process.

This happened three times over the course of the game, adding up to a field goal’s worth of points by the end.

“Their kicker, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Kaluzniak. “He just pins us in such bad situations and then when they get the ball back they’ve got so little ground to cover.”

Before the end of the first quarter, Ideaho recorded his second interception of the afternoon, and Glaud ran in his second touchdown, putting the Plainsmen in a 22-0 hole.

As rough as the opening quarter was, the second quarter is when things got out of hand.

Travis Irving scored a touchdown on a punt return, Glaud ran in his third touchdown of the afternoon and Baylis scored a touchdown on a trick play while the Plainsmen gave up two safeties, and Cory threw a third interception that was grabbed by Devaun Jones, who made a beautiful read to step up on a screen pass and run the ball into the end zone.

At the half, the score was 55-0, and the game was completely out of reach for Crocus Plains.

“Special teams made plays, the defence made plays and the offence made plays. It was just one of those games where everything went our way, all the bounces went our way,” said Oak Park head coach Chris Ollsen.

Crocus Plains failed to find any kind of rhythm throughout the first half of the game in part because Cory was constantly having to pick balls up off the ground due to poor snaps while dealing with the Raiders’ pressure.

“It’s going to be a point of emphasis for sure,” said Kaluzniak about the snaps. “But the weather is bad today, guys are freezing cold, and I think that affects it and I don’t doubt our guys are going to bounce back.”

Ever the leader, Cory commented that he’d like to have made a bit more of those plays.

“It makes it a bit more difficult,” said Cory. “But as a quarterback you still have to adjust to it. There are things I can do to make it better.”

In the second half, the Raiders slowed down on offence, scoring just twice. Baylis scored on a QB sneak from the 1-yard line with 3:03 remaining in the third quarter, and Glaub scored his fourth touchdown of the afternoon in the dying minutes of the fourth quarter.

While the scoreboard was ugly, Kaluzniak was proud of his team.

“I’m proud of our guys because everyone went out there, stepped up and played until the whistle and that’s all I can ask out of the group,” said Kaluzniak.

With the loss, Crocus Plains falls to 0-6 on the season. Kaluzniak feels that the record is deceptive, as he’s seen really promising play from his team all year and plenty of games that they could have won.

“I know the kids feel down and they’re hard on themselves, but you look back at all the games we played … outside of Dakota and Oak Park we’ve been in every game, and we’ve really shown that we can fight,” said Kaluzniak.

Next Thursday, the Plainsmen will finish their season at home against Winnipeg’s Murdoch MacKay Collegiate.

» rmccarthy@brandonsun.com