You know you’re lucky when a rabbit runs onto the field.
For the Northern Raiders, the random sighting with five minutes left in the season was a fitting symbol.
After struggling through the Calgary Midget Football League regular season with five losses and one tie, the team came in as the lowest-seed in the playoffs. But something changed in the postseason, as the Raiders beat Cochrane in round one and completed the turnaround by claiming the CMFL Division 2 championship with a convincing 35-0 win over the Calgary Stampeders at Shouldice Park on May 26.
Landon Bayda had three rushing touchdowns, while Kyle Goertzen scored on a 25-yard interception return and Kevin Low added the final major on a fumble recovery in the endzone, to lead the team.
Head coach Steve Kemp said the rabbit’s foot at the end may have been good luck, but his team’s resurgence was based on hard work and resiliency.
“I thought all season that, and the scoreboard may not have reflected it all the time, but we were always one or two plays away,” he said. “We finally started capitalizing on our chances. It’s a great feeling.”
Bayda opened the scoring just four minutes into the game, as he broke free for a 70-yard run into the Stamps’ endzone. He ran for another 70-yard gain in the second quarter, setting up a first-and-goal that he completed, with his second major, two plays later.
His third first-half touchdown, putting his team up 21-0, came with three minutes left in the second quarter, following a Stamps’ bobbled punt and fumble recovery by the Raiders on the four-yard line.
“I had great blocks and soon as I got to the second level, I was gone,” Bayda said. “All my boys did their job and you can’t ask for better.”
“(Bayda) was feeling it,” Kemp said. “I talked to him and the O-line before the game and told them, with the weather, it was going to be won and lost in the trenches. I can’t say enough about the front seven on both sides of the ball.”
The two teams met in the regular season, with the Stamps edging the Raiders 14-9, so Kemp said the team had to stay confident in the second half. But with a rainfall warning and torrential downpour, coupled with a 40-minute injury delay midway through the third quarter to a Stamps player, he said it was tough to keep momentum.
“It’s a dangerous situation, where we could have came out of the dressing room flat,” he said. “Our focus was staying up, staying focused and not relaxing. We treated the delay like another halftime.”
On the final play of the third quarter, after play finally resumed, Goertzen found himself in the proper place with his 25-yard interception return touchdown to give the Raiders a 28-0 lead.
“I saw the quarterback eying up the receiver down the field, so I picked the lane, he threw it right to me and I ran it to the endzone,” he said. “It felt really good, as we felt fortunate to even be in the playoffs by how it went this season. But we stepped it up, especially the young guys.”
“The defence has been playing hard all year and we finally had an offence to help them out,” Kemp said. “It was great finish for them.”
Low added the insurance touchdown with four minutes remaining, as the Stamps fumbled a punt in their own endzone and he jumped on top of it. For the Raiders, it was sheer jubilation.
“We never thought it was going to happen,” Bayda said. “The team is on top of the world right now.”
“I was just really happy we pulled it together and got the W,” Goertzen said. “Being a lot of the guys’ last game in midget, we haven’t done that all year, or much in my three-year time, so it was really big for us.”
“Leading up to this week, we talked about how we wanted to remember this season by leaving with a win – and the boys went out and got it,” Kemp said. “It’s great for the players, great for the organization and it’s great for the parents.”
