The final days of August don’t just mean back-to-school season is in full flow, but also the return of high-school football.
In Airdrie, all three local public high-school teams – the George McDougall Mustangs, Bert Church Chargers, and W.H. Croxford Cavaliers – have wrapped up their preseason camps and played at least one game, whether competitive or exhibition.
In fact, Bert Church already registered their first regular-season game in the Rocky View Sports Association (RVSA), having hosted the Springbank Phoenix on Aug. 25 at Ed Eggerer Athletic Park.
Unfortunately for the Chargers, the game didn’t go the way they wanted it to, as the Phoenix shut the hosts out 20-0.
For Bert Church head coach Tony Lucas, the setback shows this year’s young Chargers group still has a way to go if they hope to produce a successful 2023 campaign.
“It’s not like we didn’t do anything well, but we didn’t do enough well,” said Lucas, who is entering his third season as the Chargers’ head coach. “We have a pretty young team. We were playing a lot of young players who have very little field time in their history. I guess some of that is to be expected, but on the other hand, we can’t be satisfied with that [performance].”
Last year, the Chargers finished the season in fourth place of the RVSA. They lost to their cross-town rivals, the W.H. Croxford Cavaliers, in the division’s bronze medal game.
According to Lucas, Bert Church will have an opportunity to work out the early-season kinks and get some more field time this Friday at 6 p.m., when they host Brooks in a non-conference exhibition game. He added the players are already excited for Friday night’s outing at Ed Eggerer Athletic Park, noting that for exhibition games, playing time is pretty much a given for every player.
“The excitement level has been pretty high and everyone is showing a good attitude, coming to practice and playing hard,” he said. “I’ve told the players not to expect too much or too little. This is a work in progress. Just because our last game didn’t go well doesn’t mean we can’t have a good season. I’m confident we have a high ceiling, but we certainly have a few things to work on.”
The Chargers' next regular-season game will be on Sept. 8, when they travel to Cochrane to face the Cobras at 4 p.m.
Mustangs beat Raiders with late push
Travelling to Fort Saskatchewan to play their first preseason exhibition game on Aug. 26, the George McDougall Mustangs got their 2023 schedule off to a great start by beating the Holy Rosary Raiders 23-13.
The Raiders are a perennial powerhouse in Tier III, and won the Alberta Bowl for that division in 2022. According to George McDougall’s head coach Chris Glass, Holy Rosary is a good measuring stick for the Mustangs, who spent much of last year ranked in the top five among Alberta’s Tier II teams.
Glass said even though it was simply a preparation game for both teams, the preseason match-up was a proper dogfight.
“It was the first game for both teams but it was quite the war,” he said. “We needed every bullet in our gun to win this game.”
The real story of the game, according to Glass, came in the last few plays. He said the Mustangs were down by three points heading into the final minute, after Holy Rosary kicked a successful field goal.
Showing a never-say-die attitude, he said the Mustangs scored 10 of their 23 points in the last 52 seconds of the game to claim the victory.
“It looked like they were going to walk away with the win, but on the ensuing kick-off, we ran a gadget kick-return we’ve been practicing and that went all the way to the house,” Glass said. “That brought us [within] four, and then on the ensuing play, Ryder Frampton had an interception, and ran it into the end zone to seal the game.”
In winning the game, Glass applauded the performance of both Frampton and Tyrell Hofland, who had two touchdowns for the Mustangs, including their last one of the game. One was a kick return while the other was a 102-yard reception.
He gave a shout-out to Frampton for catching two interceptions – the second of which resulted in the winning pick-six for the Mustangs.
The Mustangs’ regular season starts this Friday, Sept. 1 on the road against Chestermere. Kick-off is at 7 p.m. at Utley Field.
George McDougall is the RVSA’s defending champion, having upset the Cochrane Cobras for the league title last fall for their first title in eight years.
While a few key players have graduated since then, including star running back Paul Condon and defensive lineman Dawson Jensen, Glass said other Mustangs members are eager to step into their shoes and fulfill important roles for the title-defending team.
“Last year’s team won that championship, so it’s about not getting complacent in thinking we ‘deserve’ to win,” he said. “We have to go and earn it. We know Cochrane is going to be strong, we know Croxford is going to be strong. We just need to keep doing the work.
“But this weekend was a really great indicator that we have a lot to be excited about going into the season. We wanted a game against a team that we consider one of the measuring sticks of the province, and we really got a feel for who we were this weekend, what we need to work on, and where we need to go.”
Croxford looks to repeat success from 2022
The W.H. Croxford Cavaliers will be tested early as they kick off the 2023 RVSA football season this week, with their first two games against the only teams that finished above them in the standings last year.
The Cavaliers will open their RVSA campaign at home against the Cochrane Cobras on Friday, Sept. 1 at 4 p.m., before taking on the title-defending Mustangs in week two for the annual west-Airdrie rivalry game that’s been dubbed the West Side Championship.
Head coach Josiah Donahue said the Croxford players and staff wouldn’t have it any other way.
“For us, we’re starting off the season with the best competition, so we’re going to have a good idea of where we’re at and evaluate where we can be at the end of the year,” he said.
W.H. Croxford finished third in the RVSA in 2022, which is the program’s best ever season. The Cavaliers opened the campaign with a six-game unbeaten streak, and spent much of the year ranked in the top 10 among Alberta’s Tier II programs.
For Donahue and his colleagues, the 2023 season will be about making sure that success wasn’t a fluke.
“We don’t want that to be a one-and-done kind of thing,” he said. “We want to continue on improving our program and having that kind of standard.”
In terms of their preseason preparations this summer, Donahue said the Cavaliers recently returned from a trip to Edmonton, where they participated in a 20-team jamboree.
There, the Cavaliers played a series of small scrimmages against Edmonton-area teams, including Adrossan, St. Albert, and St. Joseph’s, as well as Cold Lake.
“We had some awesome competition,” Donahue said. “It was a great way to get lots of reps for both our seniors but also our young guys [for whom] this is their first year playing football.”
For a full RVSA high-school football schedule, visit rvsa.rockyview.ab.ca/high-school-sports/football
