St. Paul Lions to host Provincial quarterfinals after league title defeat

While the St. Paul Lions had a valiant run in league play, a Wheatland Football League championship was not in the cards last Friday.

The Holy Rosary Raiders defended home field and won 37-7 over St. Paul to finish the league season.

Trailing 13-0 at halftime, the Lions came out with renewed energy and punched in a touchdown to get within one score. That’s when the wheels fell off, said coach Mark Tichkowsky.

“We played them tough as we normally do, but they just seemed to have more horses and more breaks, offensively for sure,” he told Lakeland Connect. 

But there’s no time to sulk for this solid team that went 4-1 during the regular season and earned the right to be the Tier IV representative for the area in Provincials.

They will host the Sexsmith Sabres at Regional Field on Saturday afternoon — the team that knocked them out of Provincial competition a year ago, and won the championships as well.

Tichkowsky believes they are better suited this time around to knock them off.

“We were pretty young last year with our core guys, and this year, we have an equal balance of seniors and second-year kids. So we’re really more experienced, I guess, in that realm, and hopefully, if we’re healthy, it pays off,” he said. 

Tichkowsky listed some of the players who have been key contributors this season and will need to be in order to make a playoff run.

“Our Grade 12 football players, Ryan Fodchuk running back and linebacker, Luke Germain, same thing, fullback and linebacker. I have a couple, great 11 Kids, Ryan Songer. And Zach Quinton, who has kind of stepped up lately.

“We’re hoping that with those guys, we can get things clicking offensively and defensively. Hopefully, we can be able to shut them down and not let them even get on the scoreboard, which our defense has been playing quite well all year long.” 

But what separates winning football from the regular season to the playoffs, especially in the cold weather, is protecting the ball and special teams.

“That’s one of our things where,  even last year when he played them, their special teams were better than ours. That was a big difference in the game. So we know where we need to be and what we need to do.” 

Kickoff is 2:00pm on Saturday at Regional Field.

If the Lions win, they’ll advance to the semifinals.