Lakeland high school football teams suffer defeats in Week 2 action

The Bonnyville Voyageurs suffered a defeat in Wainwright on Friday, while the Cold Lake Royals and St. Paul Lions played host to Border City opponents in this week’s local football round-up. 

The Voyageurs are now 0-2 on the season after a 32-14 loss to the Commandos under the lights on the road. 

The team struggled to block and just couldn’t get themselves going in the first half, but a controversial big gain for the Commandos led to that. Wainwright appeared to have 13 players on the field for the big play, which went uncalled. 

Coach Larry Godziuk said after the game, that there is lots of teaching moments from the game.  

“We have a lot of new faces–21 players dressed tonight and 16 are brand new. They’ve never had the proverbial kick in the mouth right off the get-go and they put themselves in a hole early,” said Larry Godziuk. 

Titus Fagnan’s pick-6 interception cut the game to 12-6 out of the half and then a touchdown on offense gave the Voyageurs a 14-12 edge in the 3rd quarter. 

However, the Commandos took full control of the game afterward, with 20 unanswered points to move to 1-1 on the season. 

“Our young players haven’t been in enough competitive circumstances to allow them to be in that moment…when we took that punch back and Wainwright took the lead, we just had trouble refocusing on playing the game again,” said Godziuk. 

Quarterback Cooper Prybysh said that the coach put the playcalling in his hands at the end of the first half, which led to some momentum coming into the third quarter. 

“It worked last game in the last two drives. We got some yards there and those were probably are best two drives. Sometimes good things happen when we call our own plays,” said Prybysh. 

The Voyageurs have a week of practice before playing the Lloyd Comp Barons. 

Scores from the weekend 

The St. Paul Lions hung in tough and held the Lloyd Comp Barons to 11 points at home field in a losing effort on Friday. The Lions are now 1-1 after being shutout 11-0 and play the Holy Rosary Raiders next week on the road. 

The Cold Lake Royals first home game saw one of the best programs in the province come to town in the Holy Rosary Raiders, which ended as a 63-0 rout for the Border City program. The Royals host the Commandos at Tom Varghese Field on Friday at 5:00pm. 

The Cold Lake Ravens bantam squad earned a 19-2 win over the St. Paul Bengals last weekend, while the Bonnyville Bandits played a back and forth thriller but fell just short against the Lloyd Colts 34-28.