NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
The Hat High Hawks celebrate their 42-7 win Friday night over the Crescent Heights Vikings to capture the Rangeland Football Conference championship.
The Hat High Hawks won big Friday night against the Crescent Heights Vikings on route to capturing the Rangeland Football Conference Championship. The Hawks won by a score of 42-7 as they remained perfect against their Rangeland league opponents.
Hawks head coach Quinn Skelton said he was obviously happy with the win and seeing his guys celebrate the success.
“It always feels great, seeing the kids excited about it at the end here,” Skelton said. “It’s pretty rewarding after putting in two months of work.
Hat High opened the scoring in the game with a rushing touchdown from Tesema Veurink early in the first quarter. The Vikings would answer back in the frame with their own rushing TD, from Karen Brown, to tie the game up at 7-7.
The Hawks would pick up the scoring in the second with a field goal and another rushing TD. That score from the hands of Logan Wells to put Hat High up 17-7 at the half.
Wells’ said it felt great to win Friday night and he enjoyed his senior year of football with the Hawks.
“Definitely feels great to be back winning,” Wells said. “The team loves it, everyone is all great together and we have a great bond this year. It’s going to be sad to see everyone separate but it was honestly overall a great experience.”
Hat High would continue the scoring in the second half with a rushing touchdown in the third quarter from Aayden Callan. In the fourth quarter the Hawks would pile it on with both a rushing and receiving touchdown from Veurink, to give him three in the game. With two safeties as well in the final frame, the Hawks would have 35 un-answered points to their 42-7 win.
Vikings head coach Sean Davis said he didn’t think his team played very well in the second half and that, on top of injuries, cost them the game.
“We got a bit chipped up a little bit there in the second and it cost us big,” Davis said.
Davis said they will try to get some of their guys back healthy ahead of provincials in a few weeks as they look to bounce back from the loss. With the Vikings win last week against Brooks, Crescent Heights qualified for provincials, something Davis has said in the past was one of the team’s goal on the season.
Across the field, the Hawks will host Cardston next Friday for the Tier II South Zone Championship. Skelton said it will be a tough matchup against the Cougars.
“We’ve got to build off of this and go into the zone championship and that’ll be nothing but tough… I think we’ll have our hands full with Cardston,” Skelton said.
Regardless of the results from the zones championship, the Hawks will also compete in provincials after beating the McCoy Colts last week. Wells said he thinks the Hawks could go all the way to end the season.
“I think we can really win it all if we really try. If everyone buckles down and gets ready, I think we can go all in and take it all,” Wells said.
