Hawks defeat Mustangs to clinch bantam football provincial championship

By Ryan McCracken on November 19, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com  @MHNMcCracken

The Medicine Hat Hawks completed their pursuit of perfection on Saturday at the Methanex Bowl.

Tesema Veurink punched in a pair of touchdowns and the Hawks defence held strong to lock up the team’s first Alberta bantam football tier 2 championship with a commanding 29-6 victory over the Edmonton Mustangs.

“It feels amazing,” said Medicine Hat’s Dylan Callan, who was a force to be reckoned with on defence. “We’ve come so far, from losing every single game, pretty much, to now winning every single game, having an undefeated season and becoming a provincial champion.”

Veurink put the Hawks on the board early, then he and Aayden Callan drove in two more to help build up a 22-0 lead at the half.

Edmonton’s Alex Bischof pushed back with a short touchdown run in the third quarter, but the Mustangs came up short on the two-point conversion and Logan Wells stretched the game out of reach with a touchdown catch from quarterback Brodie Fink in the fourth.

Hawks coach Scott Howes says his defence did well to adjust to Edmonton’s early attack, as the Mustangs opened the game with a handful of strong drives but were ultimately held short.

“We made some adjustments just to widen kids out,” he said. “Their quarterback wanted to be more mobile and in the first quarter they got more yards on us, but because we widened out and our kids really started clamping down, they really lost that outside game.”

Veurink says the championship took serious effort from every player on the roster, and their years of playing together seemed to create for an unstoppable force on the gridiron.

“This year, because we know all the plays from past years, we just know how to do everything and we came out strong in the end,” said Veurink. “We have some big players on our team and they know what they’re doing. Some of us have been in football for our entire life and some of us might have been just starting this year, but it ended up being great. We’re all stronger together.”

Howes added his players truly put everything they have into the program over the past three seasons, which made lifting the championship trophy at home on Saturday all the sweeter.

“When you ask kids to put in two hours a day, four or five days a week and you start at the end of August, it’s a lot,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for more out of these kids.”

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