Vikings Storm Falcons In Perogies And Sour Cream Special To Advance To U14 League Final
It was a tough fought game that for the most part bumped between the 40 yard lines.
The tone was largely one of repetition.
The team would get the ball.
An attempt was made to move the ball but in three downs the ball would invariably be turned over to their opponent.
The breaks in play saw music permeate the field with announcer Bryan Boys extolling the virtue of the weekend’s special - perogjes.
Then somehow magically, as if in some dream, more perogies would show up in the control room.
It was as if they were delivered by an endless army of back pack wearing cats.
Cats who roamed from the concession to the control tower through a subterranean tunnel system.
The perogies quickly grew into an unnamed mountain likely featured in a dream scene from the 1960’s TV comedy Gilligan’s Island just waiting to be eaten. Mary Anne and Ginger’s coconut cream pie will have to wait until next Saturday’s league finale.
And then a wake up call of reality struck as following a scoreless first quarter MJ Vikings’ Beckham Usher sped across the field.
Using his speed Usher would run the ball past the Estevan Falcons to score two back to back touchdowns.
In both of his touchdowns Usher would elude a couple of would be tacklers and then break to the outside and run seemingly forever down the sidelines to score.
Two more touchdowns were added to the Vikings total.
Nelson Karal caught a pass for a touchdown with an extra catch for a two point conversion.
With the clock at 0:00 the Vikings’ Brady Neil making a catch for a touchdown.
The score was Vikings 28 and the Falcons 0.
Most of the second half was a repeat of the first quarter. With the ball changing hands back and forth with neither team making any noticeable headway.
Then with 1:30 left in the game the Falcons struck
As if powered by Baba’s own Popeye’s spinach infused perogies the Falcons’ quarterback threw a flurry of precise long passes. The passes found their mark and the receiver would get out of bounds stopping the clock.
The Falcons threw a final pass for a touchdown with the clock out of time.
The final score was MJ Vikings 28 and the Estevan Falcons 6.
The Vikings victory has the team undefeated - a 7 - 0 record when combining both the regular and playoff seasons - in 2025. According to their coach it’s a goal the team has aimed for.
“Seven and O that was our goal for the week. And here we are seven and O we are going to move on to next week and that’s our goal again to come out on top,” Vikings head coach Allan Hender said.
About the First Quarter Hender did not see the scoreless quarter all a product of Weyburn bottling up the Vikings offence but rather much of it was a self inflicted wound.
“I thought we were our own nightmare…I think Weyburn did a good job. They weren’t able to capitaliz unfortunately for them. But for us it worked out. Again we were our own nightmare,” Hender said.
A big threat which the Vikings had to take special consideration of was the Falcons’ defensive behemoth Zion Siwale.
“We just tried to keep away from him as much as we could. And then not so much double team but wherever he was going just tried to pinch on him,” he said.
The highlight of the evening was the plays made to get the ball to a couple of second year players and the success that resulted from that.
“They’ve been working hard all season so it was nice to see it pay off for them.”
About the strong performance of Beckham Usher it was one of praise.
“He’s great out there. He is a threat whether ge has the ball or not out there. You’ve got to watch him.”
About the later fourth quarter - where Weyburn showed incredible strength - Hender said it was partially the Vikings coaches fault.
“We didn’t make any changes (in the second half). You always want to make an adjustment in the second half and we just left it the easy it was. So they made their’s and so that’s the result of it,” he said.
Hender said the team was very excited about the final next Saturday versus the MJ Gators.
“We’re very excited. We’re going to finish off the season the way we started. We get to face the same team we faced to start the season,” he said.
Asked if he was surprised to see the Gators line up against the Vikings Hender said he wasn’t.
“I knew they were a good team the first time we played them . They had some good stuff already they just had to work on it. Here is the result right now.”
About any talk of underdog status for the Gators he said it did not apply.
“We both have lots of weapons and whatever team uses them properly (will win),” he said.
The Vikings are set for a hard week of practices working on the basics as well as polishing some problem areas.
They may have been eliminated from further play but the Falcons are happy with their play in the semi-final as well as the season.
“It was a hard battle. That Viking team is no joke. They came prepared. Their defence is tough. Their offence is explosive and they’re a hard team to battle against. For us just getting here was great,” Sandy Shipley head coach of the Weyburn Falcons said.
Starting out the game went well for the Falcons, Shipley said.
“The first quarter went really well. Our defence stood strong and our offence was able to move the ball a little bit. I was extremely happy with the first quarter.”
“The second quarter kind of got away from us a little bit.”
Asked about their defensive game and the impact Zion Siwale had on the game Shipley said he “knew the game plan coming in for them for him. They were going to triple team him if he went up the middle. And they were trying to run away from him.”
“As fast as Zion is they did a very good job in staying away from him. And we didn’t get the push on them as we wanted to,” he said.
About the season Shipley described it as “really good.”
“We started off with a good run of three and O. Then we got into the Moose Jaw teams. Every year the Moose Jaw teams are tough teams to play against. But I’m happy where we sat with the number of players we had this year,” he said.
Weyburn had 31 players this season. A big portion of the team’s final success was being able to get an injured player onto the field for the final play - the player graduates from minor football this season.
Skill wise Shipley saw a lot of improvement in the Falcons.
“From the first practice to now we had seven kids that never played football before and they were playing like they were second and third year kids…there were a lot of kids that just improved consistently. I’m very pleased with where we’ve gone,” he said.
He’s hopeful all of the team’s graduating players go on to play football in high school.
A big highlight of the year was a friendly wager with Estevan coach Christian Pfeifer. The bet was whatever team lost their first meeting their head coach had to wear their opponents jersey for the next game.
The result was Pfeifer wearing a Falcons’ jersey.
“All of these Moose Jaw teams are no joke. They are really tough to play against. I really enjoy coming down here…because I find it’s a good atmosphere,” he said.
Shipley said he was happy to have Bryan Boys and his hard work making the league possible amd enjoyable.
