The Airdrie Storm Bantam Football Club dropped its fourth straight game Sept. 24, losing to the Cochrane Lions 44-22 at the Shouldice Athletic Park in Calgary.
The game started on a tough note for the Airdrie Club, as the Cochrane Lions made it into the endzone on its opening drive of the game.
By halftime, the Storm found themselves fighting an uphill battle, only garnering a single major in the first half, and heading into the break 14-8.
“Our defense have always been asked to come out strong and try and pin them deep, then our offence comes out and if we can get that touchdown right off the bat, that really boosts the confidence of these young men,” said Lions head coach Jeff Avery. “We knew we would be matched up pretty evenly with Airdrie, as we are both at the bottom of our division.”
“The got that quick score on us on the opening drive, and that deflated our defence,” said Storm head coach Steve Kemp. “We were unable to answer back on offense right away, so we had to put our defence back in a bad situation.”
A second half mistake by the Airdrie defence saw a great field goal block turn into a convert for the Lions after the Storm began celebrating the block despite a live ball on the turf.
Cochrane’s Evan Perrault picked up the ball during the confusion and ran it in for the six points.
“It was a terrific heads up play by our guys,” said Avery. “On a field goal, it’s a live ball, so Perrault picked up the ball and ran it in.”
Kemp said it was a costly mistake, but shows the areas that the team can make improvements.
“We have to play through the whistle,” said Kemp. “They are used to converts, when they are blocked, they are blown dead. You can’t be mad at them for that. We just have to reinforce playing through the whistle.”
The final tally would be 44-22 for the Cochrane squad, despite a hard fought second half.
One bright spot for the Storm was the consistent play of running back Jordan Baldwin and his supporting offensive lineman.
“He is great, he is our leader,” said Kemp.
“We look for him to make plays, he is a hell of a ball player.”
“The offensive linemen were opening up big holes for him and he was hitting them hard. If we can get him into free spaces, he can score some points for us.”
Even Avery gave Baldwin credit for his speed from the backfield.
“He is a fantastic athlete that kid, we were watching him on film and he can do a lot of stuff from the backfield,” said Avery. “We had our middle linebacker key on him every play, cause he was getting the ball 90 per cent of the time.”
