When the Unity Warriors football team rolled into Kindersley last week, they knew they were in for a fight. Kindersley’s coach had his team ready to play a downhill and hard-nosed style of football, and was rewarded early for his impressive preparation.
“Kindersley is tough. They played us tough all year and they controlled the game most of the first half,” credited Warriors coach Kyle Clark.
He described a large lead for the Kobras into half-time, and then a slight response from his team before Kindersley ran a kickoff in for a score to seemingly hand Unity another dagger to their provincial hopes.
From there, the game turned positive for the Warriors.
Clark says that with about five minutes to go he had it in the back of his mind that a 28-19 score might be a tough one to come back from, but he still held out hope as his team managed to score and then provided a key stop on defense to get the ball back with around 40 seconds left in the game, and take over the ball on their own 20 yard line.
“My offensive coordinator and I were looking at each other like ‘Ok, what’s the best plan for us to get this yardage here’. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would run a play for a touchdown. I thought hopefully we will get close, and you know a lot of things need to go right for you to score with 40 seconds to go from your own 20.”
A broken pass play set up the Warriors first big gain. With no timeouts available the Unity receiver smartly got himself out of bounds with under 20 seconds left, providing the coach with some hope. The coach was afforded some more hope after another 20 yard gain, setting up a big decision.
“That brought the clock down to under 10 seconds, and we looked at each other and said we have a really strong offensive player. He runs well, he catches well, so let’s just send him,” recounted Clark, “We actually hadn’t completed a pass that far all season. So we thought here we go, we have one shot to do it.”
Clark noted zeroes on the clock as the ball was snapped, and how his receiver snuck behind the defense and caught a perfectly delivered ball right in the end zone to cap off the unbelievable victory. Other receivers ran their decoy routes as it was a given where the ball was going, and the Warriors star receiver beat the defender to give his team the walk-off win.
The Warriors win meant they would be moving on to SHSAA provincials, and are now set to take on the Clavet Cougars this Saturday on the road. Clavet is a team that shared a conference with other west central teams in Plenty, Rosetown, Outlook, and Biggar; but is a former foe of the Warriors as well.
“Clavet used to be in our league so we’ve played them a number of times,” shared Clark.
He noted the spread offense and pass heavy style the team is known to have, and expects the weekend match-up to be a battle for sure. Earlier in the season Rosetown Royals coach Mitch Wintonyk had some high praise for their newest conference rivals in Clavet as well.
“The whole thing with Clavet is their offense. If their offense is going, they will play good. Their defense is good but I am not scared of it necessarily,” shared the fellow coach, offering a potential solution, “You never know if you get a blizzard or a -20 day in the playoffs; they pass 90% of the time out of the spread. I give them credit, they’ve ran that since I was in high school and they run it well. They have won provincial titles running it.”
Those facts may just bode well for the Warriors, as Unity has shown that their roster is capable of winning any type of football game after a 17-14 loss to Kerrobert ended their regular season, and then the spectacular end of game offense against Kindersley proved they can play any way they need in order to win.
The game will kickoff tomorrow afternoon, at 1 pm in Clavet.
Fri, Apr 26, 7:30 PM
