Evan Perrault scored three touchdowns to lead the Cochrane Lions over the Airdrie Storm 46-0 in Calgary Peewee League football at Shouldice Park on Sept. 18.
The Lions’ tight end had a 21-yard run, a 30-yard run and a 25-yard catch, as well as a 60-yard run called back, as the Lions now move to 4W-0L on the season.
“It went really well for us,” said Lions head coach Jeff Avery. “Full credit to Airdrie, though. They’re a small team, but they were blitzing hard and gave us all we could handle in the first half.”
“We were hitting them, but you’ve got to make the tackles,” said Storm head coach Tyrell Rohl. “When you’ve got young guys who are new to the sport, sometimes, you don’t hold on to the contact and that’s what you’re seeing with their inexperience.”
After a scoreless first quarter, Cole Avery opened the scoring for Cochrane with a 20-yard touchdown run. A Storm fumble on its own 35-yard line then led to Perrault’s first touchdown. He scored his second with 1:18 left in the half to propel the Lions to a 24-0 halftime lead.
“All of their 24 points in the first half were because of missed tackles,” Rohl said. “It could’ve been only 8-0 or 16-0 at the half.”
In Peewee football, touchdown converts are two points for kicking and one for throwing or rushing.
Perrault had two more touchdowns in the second half, while Cochrane also got scores from another Avery run and a 55-yard interception return by Connor Curr.
“Perrault and Avery are second-year kids and when they decide they want to run, they’re hard to bring down,” Avery said. “We wanted to throw more today, but this team prevented us from doing that, so in the second half we changed up the offence a little bit. And the defence was happy to get the shutout and score a touchdown.”
The Storm put Quinn Yakiwchuk in at quarterback for the first time and Rohl said it would likely be permanent move.
“He’s an incredible ball player, so we decided this week to put him in,” he said. “It gives us a whole other dynamic and now it’s just a matter of getting the blocks so we can get him outside. That’s the big thing for us this week.”
The Storm only has eight returning players from last year and also has 18 11-year-olds playing against predominately 12-year-olds, so Rohl said it would be a tough season for them.
“For us to hang in there and play like that is really encouraging,” he said.
The Lions will play the Calgary Cowboys at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 25, while the Storm will play the Calgary Hilltoppers at 12:30 p.m. the same day. Both games are at Shouldice Park.
“I think that’s going to be the showdown for first place in this division,” Avery said of the Lions-Cowboys game. “They always have a solid team, but I think we have a team that will give them battle.”
