Lancers conclude successful first season with championship win

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This article was published 17/11/2010 (5754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s one year in the books and one trophy in the case for the Dakota Collegiate football program.

Playing in their inaugural season in the Winnipeg High School Football League, the Lancers were clearly the class of the Currie Division, as they confirmed on Nov. 10 with a 30-2 win over the Daniel McIntyre Maroons in the Canad Inns Bowl.

The win capped a perfect 10-0 season, and brought the Lancers’ final point differential to 398-25.

Braden Vankoughnett, the Grade 11 linebacker from St. Vital who leads the Lancers defence, summed the season up in three words: “We made history.”

None of the players or coaches were thinking much about a championship at the start of the year. They were just concerned with developing skills and laying the foundation for the program.

“Not at all,” said a Gatorade-soaked coach Ray Jarvis when asked if he foresaw his team’s immediate success. “Not with what we had at the beginning.”

At the beginning, what Jarvis and his coaching staff had was a small roster of only 28 players (there were 40 listed on the championship game lineup card), some of whom had previously played with the St. Vital Mustangs and many of whom had never strapped on a helmet before.

“They worked hard all season,” Jarvis said. “As the skills kept developing. We could see that the players really wanted to learn.”

It also didn’t hurt that the team started to win right from the opening week of the season.

Even though he wouldn’t come out and say it, it wasn’t long afterwards that Vankoughnett began to believe that the Lancers could be a championship contender.

“Everybody sets their goals high and shoots for a championship,” he said, “but we just wanted to have the best season we could. Once we started clicking, the offence found its stride, the defence was playing tough, and I started to think about it in the back of my head, but you don’t want to say anything to jinx it.”

The leadership provided by players like Vankoughnett, who were eager to help their inexperienced teammates, played a key role in improving the team’s talent base and bringing it together, Jarvis said.

Vankoughnett, who was part of a Mustangs squad that won a midget provincial championship, said it was a different feeling playing for his school team.

“With high school, you’re winning a championship for and with all the guys you see every day,” he said.

Dakota is a school with a rich sports history, but Vankoughnett is confident that football is on its way to the top of the heap.

“All the teachers and the whole student body is behind it,” he said. “As the year went on it got bigger and bigger. A bunch of guys want to come out next year, so it’s all pretty exciting.”

While Vankoughnett was named Dakota’s player of the game, running back Bryce Davidson, who scored three touchdowns, was named the Canad Inns Bowl’s most valuable player.

In other bowl games, Murdoch MacKay won the Free Press Bowl with a 11-4 decision over Kildonan East to capture the AA Vidruk Division championship.

Meanwhile, Oak Park won a pair of championships. The Raiders won the junior varsity championship with a 43-12 victory over Grant Park in the Home Run Sports Bowl, and took home the AAA Potter Division title with a 27-17 ANAVETS Bowl win over St. Paul’s.

avi.saper@canstarnews.com