Voyageurs defeat Lions in Special Thursday Night Game

Walsh field was lit up for a 63-8 Bonnyville win over St. Paul

The Bonnyville Voyageurs welcomed the St. Paul Lions to Walsh Field Thursday evening for a special exhibition match before the Thanksgiving long weekend. Although, an exhibition match, Head Coach of the Bonnyville Voyageurs, Larry Godzuik says the game did have an impact on their post season.

“This places us third in our post-season rankings. So when we head into the playoffs we’ll have a second place game,” Coach Godzuik explains the club will need to meet Wainwright next weekend, “if we get by Wainwright, then we’ll head to Lloyd Comp. to play them in the second round of playoff.”

 Aaron Goulet hauls in the big pass and make his way into the endzone.

“We’re heading into the playoffs, so we started as many defensive players as we could to develop them and get them to gel. It’s only Silas (Fagnan) second game as quarterback. He got a lot of work tonight,” Coach Godzuik says the Lions blitz throughout the game and his young 16 year old QB handled it very well. Fagnan broke a few records on the field; including, 343 yards passing, surpassing his record vs Rosary. With those 343 yards passing for a total of 1391 yards so far, surpassing Mike German’s season record.  Fagnan also tied Glen Dane with 5 TD passes in a game.

Although not typical for a high school football team to start a 16 year old at quarterback, Coach Godzuik says Silas Fagnan is ready. “He’s been throwing the ball since he was five years old. He;s had a lot of camp time, a lot of individual time with CFL and NCAA quarterbacks. He has quite the skillset and it’s allowed us to utilize a lot of players and it’s allowed us to be very successful on the field.”

Teams can’t just focus on one or two of our players. We have multiple guys who can attack the field. – Larry Godzuik Head Coach Bonnyville Voyageurs

“Defense stepped up, big time. We had a lot of guys roll up on our defensive line. Aaron Smith, he had an excellent game. Jacob Cardenas had another strong  game, and our new starting middle linebacker, Cameron Zelisko had a heck of a game, putting pressure on the quarterback and he was a real standout on defense.” Godzuik says that with a well-rounded team, opponents aren’t able to zero in and attack key players to win.

Reid Skrypichayko pulls out the old ‘I’m gonna pass the ball’ fake for a few more yards!

The Voyageurs will enjoy a weekend of turkey before hitting the field next week to practice up for Wainwright Commrades. Wainwright was in Cold Lake Thursday evening for an exhibition game against the Royals and fell 27-7 to the host team.

 Zach Hesson down the sidelines for the major!