PHOTO COURTESY CHRIS STEVENS
The Medicine Hat Raiders captured the inaugural Southern Alberta Peewee Football championship on Saturday, beating the Cardston Cougars 35-0.
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The Medicine Hat Raiders capped off a legacy season with a provincial championship.
The Raiders captured the inaugural Southern Alberta Peewee Football championship on Saturday, beating the Cardston Cougars 35-0. It was a win that put the final notch on a perfect 8-0 season where the Raiders outscored their opponents 287-13.
“It was definitely nice to get both the league championship game done with and then right away we had that southern Alberta provincial game that was nice to get all the way to the end and finish on the winning side,” head coach Chris Stevens said.
“It was one of the goals we were hoping to accomplish at the beginning of the season. We took it one day at a time and the next thing we knew, we were playing the provincials game and coming out on top.”
In the provincial clincher, Chance Ross ran for 220 yards, scoring three touchdowns. Pierce Neigum caught a 75-yard touchdown pass, also scoring on the ground. Drake Brost and Cody Lott each had eight tackles, with the former also scoring a touchdown.
They beat the Brooks Badgers for the league championship on Oct. 29, setting up the provincial finals appearance.
LC Beckles had 105 rushing yards and a touchdown. Diesel Stevens had 11 tackles and Neigum had 48 yards receiving, scoring a touchdown.
Stevens says through his years of post-secondary football and growing up through the sport, this group and their achievements are near the top of his highlight list.
“It wasn’t that we just had one or two players that stood up, but it was the entire team was just so deep that no matter who we put in, who had the ball, someone was going to do something with it, and it made my job a lot easier as a coach,” Stevens said.
“It’s something I’ll cherish forever and it’s something that I’ve enjoyed every step of the way.”
The Raiders, made up of players aged Grade 5-7, competed against two other local teams and the Brooks team in a city league. Stevens says the success of the league and his team bodes well for the future of the sport in Medicine Hat.
“It’s great having Atom and Pee Wee football available in the city, you can definitely tell a large amount of the boys on this team, it’s my fourth year coaching them all the way from Atom to now and you could just see the growth each year,” Steven said. “This year just seemed to all come together and the years of hard work of coaching them and them listening and putting things into play when I’d ask them to do something, just made it extra special, because it’s been so long that we’ve been working for this.”
