Pirates in tough against Lancers

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This article was published 07/11/2023 (1061 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Dakota Lancers and Grant Park Pirates have never won the ANAVETS Bowl, the grand prize in the Winnipeg High School Football League.

One program will end that slide when they clash at IG Field Friday (6 p.m.) to decide who captures the AAAA conference championship.

The Lancers (7-1) were here a year ago but dropped a 15-11 decision to St. Paul’s. They’re a different beast this season, however, and have looked like the most dominant program in the province at many points, climbing as high as No. 10 in the national rankings.

“That collective experience of going to the finals, playing a team that we had beaten previously — that we thought we could handle — it parallels this a lot. So I think there’s a lot of lessons we took from that,” Lancers head coach Mitch Harrison said at Tuesday’s championship press conference at the Rockwood Legion.

“It’s the fastest game you’re ever going to be a part of and what struck me after the loss last year was, ‘Wow, it’s over’ and, ‘What was the score? I don’t even know what happened.’ I think that speaks to us letting the emotions get to us a bit, letting the crowd get to us a little too much, took us out of the game and didn’t let us focus on what we needed to focus on.”

Save for a hard-fought loss to the Crusaders during the regular season, the Lancers have rolled over just about everyone in their path this year to the tune of 357 points for and just 67 points against, the best point differential in the province.

They were tested again in last week’s semi-final against the Oak Park Raiders, who jumped out to a 23-7 lead at halftime. The Lancers’ defence put an end to the noise out of the break, pitching a second-half shutout to spur a thrilling 24-23 comeback that ended on a rouge in triple-overtime.

The Pirates (7-1), playing in the ANAVETS Bowl for the first time since 2021, have squeezed about as much juice as they can out of a young roster that lost four of its nine seniors before the season started. The offence has operated at an admirable 28.28 point per game clip while the defence has conceded just 15 points per contest.

The Pirates’ lone hiccup came in the regular-season finale to the division-rival Lancers, a lopsided contest that ended 49-0. They bounced back admirably, trouncing Maples 49-0 in the quarterfinals and shocking St. Paul’s 24-21 in last week’s semifinal. It’s tough to ignore the result from a few weeks ago, however, and Pirates head coach Doug Kovacs said his team will “need to play a perfect game to even be close in this game.”

“We’ve been talking this week about catching lightning in a bottle,” Kovacs said. “We have to play our best game, so just keep it going, keep doing the little things right, keep moving forward.

“We talk a lot about in our program about windshields, never looking in the rear-view mirror. We got our eyes focused on Dakota on Friday, nothing else.”

Dakota has won the last four meetings between the programs, its last loss coming in a 17-3 decision in 2021. While the Lancers may be the more experienced team and boast a wealth of talent in all three phases, they’ve been keen to avoid getting too far ahead of themselves.

“A big part of this week is managing (our confidence). It’s hard to ignore it, but if you let it build up too much then you go into it cocky and you can lose,” said Lancers quarterback Blake Penner.

“There’s a really good sense of connection within the locker room. The relationships are really strong, there’s no strong division between any people so that’s really nice, it makes me feel good about us.”

Similarly, many players on the Pirates have become inseparable, having played together since they were 10 years old on the Corydon Comets. The Pirates are embracing the role of the underdog for a second week in a row and have every intention of shocking the league on Friday.

“It’s surreal almost. It’s kind of hard to believe, all those hours before school and after school, they paid off and I’m happy for where we are,” said linebacker Max Payne.

“Everyone is so excited. There’s a little bit of disbelief but everyone’s mostly staying focused. It is Tuesday so we are still celebrating a bit but everyone’s got the same momentum as in we’re ready. We’re coming.”

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

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