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Bucs off to AFL championship after semi-final win over Calgary

Aug 19, 2018 | 12:43 PM

The Central Alberta Buccaneers are off to the Alberta Football League (AFL) final after a 38-13 win over the Calgary Wolfpack at Setter’s Place in Great Chief Park Saturday night.

This means the Bucs will face their biggest arch rivals, the Fort McMurray Monarchs in next weekend’s championship final in Fort Mac after the Monarchs stomped out the St. Albert Stars 51-0 in the league’s other semi-final game on Saturday.

In Red Deer Saturday, the Bucs opened the scoring with a field goal at 8:09 of the first quarter to go up 3-0 and they never relinquished the lead after that. Following it up with a touchdown from quarterback Jarrett Burzuk with 24 seconds left in the quarter to have a 10-0 lead after 15 minutes of play.

The second quarter saw both teams trade touchdowns with the Buc’s Ian Keetch finding the end zone with only four seconds left in the half to give the home team a 17-7 lead after 30 minutes.

In the second half, the Bucs capitalized on an interception and added to their lead in the third quarter when wide receiver Josh Blanchard scored a touchdown to put the boys in red up 24-7 after 45 minutes of action.

The Buccaneers struck again early in the fourth quarter with another touchdown to really put the game away and go up 31-7 but an injury to a Calgary player just a few minutes later resulted in a lengthy delay. Eventually, the injured player was taken from the field by ambulance. Wolfpack players gave the thumbs-up however as their teammate left.  

Following the delay, Calgary managed to find some momentum and the end zone and scored a touchdown with an unsuccessful two-point convert attempt to pull within 31-13 of the Bucs.

The Buccaneers would respond though when Major Newman crossed the goal line with 2:02 left in the game to make it a 38-13 final.

 

 

Head Coach Fred Knip says it was a good win, a win they needed to have after last week’s late game collapse at the hands of the visiting Fort McMurray Monarchs.

“Before the game, we knew we had a lot of injured players, so we talked about whether we were going to be able to pull this off,” says Knip. “We said ‘We’re family, we’re a band of brothers and we stick together, if one falls out, we’ll all gather together , we’re going to circle the wagon and lets just pull this together’.”

He says team work and fewer undisciplined penalties were their keys to victory.

“We may not have the number one quarterback but we had [Burzack] and Burzy did absolutely excellent,” adds Knip. “He had an o-line that did excellent, he had receivers that did excellent, we had running backs that did excellent and then to top that all off, defense kept us in the game. Together, everyone achieved more today, so we beat the Wolfpack.”

Burzack completed 25 of 30 passes on the night for 359 yards with two touchdown passes and two interceptions. He added 55 rushing yards and a touchdown on four carries.

Hnatiuk had five catches on the night for 96 yards and a touchdown. Blanchard caught six passes for 85 yards and a major.

Defensively, Jordan Willie and Ashton Jones were each credited with five solo tackles. 

Looking ahead to next Saturday’s AFL final, Knip says the Bucs know what they have to do to be successful.

“It’s revenge time, third times a charm” states Knip. “We know they’re this, we know they’re that but we’ve got character. We’re a bunch of kids that want to play together, stay together, have fun together, work in this community together but we’re going to see if we can pull this off just one play at a time.”

He says that plan includes keeping the Monarch’s offence off the field.

“Keep the ball maybe on the ground, do a little bit more running than we have been before,” Knip explains. “Making sure that we keep the ball in our possession, keeping our mouths shut, no piling on, just stay clean, keep our nose up and run downhill and make sure that we get some yards. If we get yards, they don’t have the ball, if they don’t have the ball, they can’t score and if they can’t score, they can’t win.”