St. Paul Bengals best Bonnyville Bandits in Bantam Final

Regional Field can be a difficult place to play at the best of times, but when hosting a championship, that much harder.

The St. Paul Bengals, by virtue of being the best team during the bantam season, had home field advantage against the Bonnyville Bandits on Saturday for the Wheatland Bantam Football League title.

They took care of business, winning 46-26, and maintaining a home record of 8-0 in championship games.

“I’m very proud, but hats off to the Bandits, man. Boy, this is what a final should be, a tough, tough battle,” said Bengals coach Todd Tanasichuk post-game.

“We were able to get ahead of them early. And we just were able to maintain it, but you never felt safe. They’re a great team. I mean, it’s just the way a final should be. And I’m very proud of them.” 

Multiple times the Bandits were able to come within one score of the Bengals, but a consistent ground game for St. Paul allowed them to overcome when needed.

The Bandits threatened to score right before halftime but were shut out from the endzone, to end the 2nd quarter 26-13 for the Lions. But Bonnyville did not quit.

They scored another rushing touchdown late in the 3rd quarter to narrow the game to 26-20. This trading of scores continued into the 4th quarter with a touchdown for each club to make it 34-26.

That’s when the Bengals were finally able to get that breathing room and score two touchdowns to seal the deal. As the players gathered before the trophy ceremony, they chanted “Joe” when asked who the player of the game was.

Joseph Pilipchuk couldn’t take all the credit though.

“Everyone did their job,” he said post-game. 

Bandits coach Robbie Cole praised the Bengals performance in their victory and commended how his team responded after missing some players to illness.

“I’m proud of my kids,” Cole told Lakeland Connect. “We had kids that lit it up. There’s some kids here that showed up back in September that had no clue where the line of scrimmage was, never played a sport really, period, and they were starting this game, so we did make some good headway with the kids we had,” said Cole. 

The win was the first Bengals league championship since 2017, which was a Provincial championship season to boot.

To even play the game considering the conditions was difficult.

With the amount of snow that came down overnight, it took the work of volunteers, including Roger Gerard and Darryl Peters who cleared Regional Field to make the frozen tundra playable for the afternoon contest.

Now the Bengals attention turns to the Northern Final in pursuit of a Provincial championship this Saturday. The Bengals will need to shake off the bus legs in order to do so, as they’ll travel over six hours to Grande Prairie for the game.