Spartans squads playoff bound

Aryssah Stankevitsch     

Times Reporter   

 

Two of the three Strathmore Spartans football teams are into the post-season, including the bantams, who finished first in the south division. They defeated Lindsay at home on Oct. 19 in the quarter-finals, by a score of 62-2.

“Our offense finally came alive, and our defense continued their strong play,” Doug Klauck said, bantam coach. “We had a couple players with three touchdowns each.”

Those players were Kashtin Running Rabbit and Tavell Grant. Klauck said the team still needs to tighten up on a few aspects of the game, before facing Stettler at home in the semi-finals on Oct. 26.

“Defensively, we’ll need to improve for a tougher running team as Stettler is; it’s just staying disciplined,” Klauck said. “We expect them to be a tougher team than we’ve seen in a while. They finished second in the north division. From all indication from their game against Springbank (in the playoffs), it should be a good game.”

With a potential victory over Stettler, depending on the results of other games, the Spartans may play at home for the championship on Nov. 2.

The other Spartan team continuing in the playoffs is Coach Chuck Holloway’s peewees; they shut out Olds in their final season game 30-0 on Oct. 19. The peewee Spartans will also battle against Stettler on Oct. 26, but are away, for the quarter-final.

“I played them last year,” Holloway said. “From results in the league, everybody’s telling me we’re pretty evenly matched.”

Stettler had the same record as the Spartans, but with two more points scored against them, Strathmore finished third in the division instead of Stettler’s second.

If the peewees win on Oct. 26, they’d likely face Lacombe, the only team that beat them this season by a score of 44-6.

“We’re prepping the team as far as playing Lacombe,” Holloway said. “If we can defend Lacombe, we can defend Stettler.”

The Strathmore High School Spartans didn’t finish their season as hoped; with another loss against Drumheller on Oct. 15, 61-14, they placed sixth in the league and are out of the playoffs. In total, the Senior Spartans scored 42 points, but had 367 scored against.

“It’s the lack of execution, due to lack of practice attendance – you know, you hate to keep beating that drum but, we never did get executing 100 per cent,” Senior Coach Carl Seafoot said. “It’s just always kind of, okay, that’s done, now for the future, what can we do? You start making efforts to try and improve things.”

One of those efforts includes combining practices with Chestermere for next season.

“We’re working on a bit of a partnership with Chestermere, to get us some more scrimmage time,” Seafoot said. “Maybe getting both teams together for one day a week.”

Seafoot will lose eight players to graduation, but has plenty of players potentially coming back.

“We should still have 15 plus returning. Then you get your influx out of bantam, and a few new bodies maybe,” he said. “It was definitely a tough year.”