By Jeff D'Andrea

Marauders lose to defending city champion Centennial 36-14

Sep 23, 2011 | 10:54 PM

The huge discrepancy in the passing game had a lot to do with the Centennial Collegiate Chargers’ win over the St. Mary Marauders 36-14 Friday at Prime Minister’s Park.

Due to several injuries in their quarterbacking core, the St. Mary Marauders came into Friday’s game with a crippled and restricted playbook and were forced to create a new offence, operated by their

Grade 10 running back Bryant Sackney.
On the other side of the field, the Chargers fielded possibly the province’s best quarterback, Jared

Andreychuk who passed for 180 yards and two touchdowns and rushed for a TD in the victory, while the Marauders put up only 17 yards passing on four attempts.

“This week, we were really limited with our quarterback (Mitch Kokotailo) with an injury, throwing shoulder, and so our plan is to make sure he’s healthy so we can open our playbook up,” said Hundeby. “Their offence is very balanced, they caught us snoozing a couple times on long passes that cost us for points… Centennial’s a great football team. They’re the defending city champs and the provincial runners up, so with what we’re doing and to put two scores up (was good).”

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As a result, the Marauders relied very heavily on Sackney, even making him quarterback for the majority of the game.

Sackney was up to the task and had a huge game, running for 182 on 18 carries from both the running back and quarterback positions—he also returns punts and kick-offs.

“Whatever grease he sweats, I wish he could share that with the guys because he’s so tough to tackle and such a willing guy to run the ball,” said Hundeby. “Regardless of where we line him up, people are going to notice him. I thought he played well in both spots, he had a couple of long runs either way.
“He plays like that regardless. I’m sure if we played him at receiver, he’d play like that and if we put him at linebacker, he’d probably play like that, too. He’s just one of those kids that’s just a hard worker for us.”

Sackney had to learn a completely new offence quickly this week as they took a lot of snaps from under centre. Kokotailo was also used, but was limited to throwing screen passes as he shoulder continues to heal.

“We put a whole new offence in this week where (Sackney’s) taking a direct snap from centre, that’s a lot to ask from a Grade 10 but he did a really good job, didn’t complain about it, just sucked it up and learned how to play a dive-option offence in three days,” said Hundeby, as he shook his head in disbelief.

“It definitely gives me a new perspective on the game, to see how it is to play quarterback and to see all that pressure and to have that on you,” Sackney said. “I really gotta give it to the quarterbacks, it’s so much pressure and at first, I gotta admit, I didn’t like it very much. It’s a lot on you, but once we started getting some big plays, it started to flow more and the pressure came off my shoulders a little bit more.”

Although he’s already proven himself as a great talent with only three games under his belt at the senior high school level, the Marauders know they cannot rely solely on Sackney for their offence. Hundeby hopes that either Kokotailo or quarterback Kale Swanson can get healthy for next week so the Marauders can install and utilize their passing plays in their playbook.
In the first two games of the season, Hundeby said that the passing game was starting to gel before the injury bug bit.

“In our first game, we had guys wide open and are missing the throws, second game we had guys wide open, hitting the throws but missing the catches and then we got hurt,” said Hundeby. “We were inches away to making that effective. Our offence is based on running the ball, and then throwing ten or a dozen passes for big yardage, and that’s where we need to improve.”

The Marauders will have their next three games on the road, starting with the St. Joseph Guardians on Thursday.

jdandrea@panow.com