Royal win Zone Championship

Photo Credit: Chasity Roberts

The Cold Lake Royal High School Football club has won the consolation zone championship, after defeating the Wainwright Commandos 21-17 on Soholt Field. Saturday’s win is the first zone championship for the club in three years. Coach Kelly Johnson says he’s proud of the team and looking forward to hosting provincials on November 11th.

“The quarter final was two weeks ago, against St. Paul. Unfortunately, we lost 19-14, really close game and highly emotional,” Coach Johnson says it was quite the journey for the Royals to get to the championship. The St. Paul Lions went on to play the Lloydminster Barons. Wainwright had lost to the Bonnyville Voyageurs that same weekend, which sent the Commandos to Cold Lake to take on the Royals. “It’s the consolation final, but we’re all tier 4 teams, so it’s a level playing field.”

Heading into the game, the Royals were able to have a week off to prepare. Which allowed them to heal up some players that were injured during the final weeks of the regular season, says Johnson, “we got our starting linebacker back. That really hurt us, especially because we are low in numbers.” The team dressed 21 players, with a couple on the injured list for Saturday’s game. “We’ve been playing hard and we’re looking to have fun.”

The team had fun all the way to the buzzer, when they took the game 21-17 over the Commandos. The whole team came together for the win, says Johnson. There were a few stand out players, “both Aiden Harrison and Matt Delorme had awesome games running the ball, they played their hearts! Nathan Roberts had a couple of huge game saving tackles on Defence!”

The Royals will host provincials quarter finals versus Sexsmith on November 11th at 1:00 pm on Soholt Field, in Cold Lake.