Mustangs hold post-season football skills competition

Grace Kirkness, Gus Halibert, Evan Malhi, Isaac Webb,
Gunner Metcalfe and Coach Mark Barber
T. Lucas photos

"The promise of glory in August turns to smiles and sweat in September and October as battles are fought on the gridiron ending with sadness buoyed by a burger after the skills competition in November." ~ Coach Tom


Peewee skills competition

Coach Tom Holoboff, Contributor

Well sports fans, it was a sad day at Matthew Halton field on Saturday, November 2. What started last August with such high hopes of glory ended with a skills competition that pitted teammate against teammate on Saturday to find out who listened and learned this season.

Evan Malhi at the tire competition

The Peewee Mustangs started with a football throw through the tire. Unfortunately the cold wet weather did not enable the players to get a grip at this exercise, to the point that centre Gus "The Meat" Halibert made his last 2 attempts as a long snap vs throw. Richie "The Hammer" Lagrandeur was the only player to be successful at this endeavor. Next the players moved to pass receiving, with "Hands" Grace Kirkness and Evan "Hitman" Malhi both showing good hands catching all three passes. "Hands" Kirkness made a CFL-worthy one-handed nab on the 5-and-in pass.

Caleb  Jones Running back run

On the Bear Crawl, players crawl on hands and feet through 5 bags then block the coach back to the finish line. Jarret "Jet" Plante showed a nice return, blazing through the course in 18.38 seconds. Lance Paleo finished a strong second with 19.56 and Quinn Parker Withlow showed great determination coming 3 with 19.85. Next the team moved to the running back drill with the players weaving through 4 bags then sprinting for 4 yards. Richie "Hitman" Lagrandeur blazed through the course in 10:31 seconds, Jarret Plante showed his jets with 10:47 seconds and Lance Paleo showed pure speed with a 10.72 time. Hitman Mahli was by far the most determined and would have easily won had his legs not been half the length of his teammates - great job Evan.

Pure speed: Lance Paleo Running back run

Gus "The Meat" Halibert did suggest that he would be much faster just running over the bags rather then weaving, but Coach Tom did suggest that would be illegal for the drill. Besides, wheels he is not hahaha. The last drill pits player vs player in the pit. Each player lays on their back head to head, coach throws the ball to one, they both must get up and the player with the ball tries to run by the other player trying to execute a good tackle. This is executed between 2 bags about 3 yards apart. Grace "Hands" Kirkness showed everyone that she is far more than just a pretty set of hands, using pure determination to win the pit over the flash of Isaac "Spiderman" Webb in the final. Gus "The Meat" Halibert powered his way over Lance cutter Paleo to win 3rd place in this drill.

Brody Walter takes on Coach Tom after the bear crawl

Caleb Catman Jones, Gunner Trent Metcalfe, Tenacious Tegan Teneycke and Bullet Brody Walter all gave their best efforts in all the drills and promise to shine next year in the skills competition.

As the players were eliminated from the pit drill, they slowly made their way to the sheds to turn in their equipment thus bringing the 2013 Peewee Mustang football season to a close.

The promise of glory in August turns to smiles and sweat in September and October as battles are fought on the gridiron ending with sadness buoyed by a burger after the skills competition in November.

Pee Wee warm up exercises

Although cold and wet, fun was had by all during this last day between the white lines. Coach Tom would like to give a huge thank you to Coach Mark Barber and Coach Robert Plante for all their assistance and support this season. Thank you to all the parents that, no matter what, supported all the players to the bitter (cold) end. Finally to the players through the smiles, laughs, tears, friendly jeers, triumphs and losses never was there a frown. Thank you all for a great year, see you next Saturday at the awards banquet and especially next year.

I expect to see each and everyone of you out for the Stamps Camp next year. In the meantime do not forget crossfit during the off season. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind and the many other benefits of good health. Until the final report of the awards banquet, this is Coach Tom reminding everyone every day is a great day for football.

Warm ups and stretches 

Bantam and Senior skills competition

The Bantam and Senior Mustangs attended the skills competition at Matthew Halton field on Saturday, November 2 along with the Peewees.   The exercises were more than passing, hand offs, and tackles.  It was about being together one more time as a team.  This was truly a bit of a sad day, being the last day on the field for this season.

Bantams warming up by doing drills on the hill

Bantam Mustangs

Bantam Coach Travis Liscombe was very proud of the team.  "We had a lot of fun.  It was a great year.  Our goal in Bantam starting out is to create a lot of good football players to feed into the Senior program next year.   I think we accomplished that.  I think everybody's skill set went a little higher."

"The Senior program should be shored up very nicely next year with a bunch of good football players," said Liscombe, who said 14 members of the Bantam team will move up.

"Hopefully we've done our job this year, and Wayne will have a gung-ho group that's ready to giver."

Losing 14 of his current players will help the Senior Mustangs but it means that the Bantams will have a lot of new faces.  "It's a continuous drumbeat in our football program, but we need more kids to be playing football."  

Senior Mustangs

"We knew at the beginning of the season that the team was young and inexperienced," said Senior Mustangs Head Coach Wayne Alexander.  "We lost 13 out of 20 previous players.  Even though we were young and inexperienced, I still felt optimism.  I look at the growth and I look at how the season went.  The boys never lost focus.  They came to practices.  I never felt going into a game that we didn't stand a chance," explained Alexander.  "Unfortunately, with injuries, we were always behind the eight ball.  We would have our quarterback go down which meant that we had no on who could pass.  That meant we had to run, and our opposition knew we had to run.  It was those kind of things."

Senior Mustangs jumping skills

Senior Mustang Austin Sinclair catches some air

"We went 0 - 7.  I still felt the whole time that we were much better, that the potential was there, rather than what the record showed."  Alexander is optimistic that the roster will improve from 22 to 32 or more for the Senior Mustangs next season.  He feels that not having a larger number of players really made a difference for how tired the players were by the end of the games and that the team was lacking for coverage if players were sick or injured.

All four of the Mustangs that are graduating are linemen:  Austin Sinclair, Eddie Many Guns, Bailey McDougall and Robbie Smith.  "Linemen happens to be a position that a lot of teams are really looking for." 

Mustangs President Faith Zachar:

"I think they've all had a wonderful year, this year," said Mustangs President Faith Zachar.  "They didn't have all that much success on the field, but I think each level built real teamwork."