Richard Froese
South Peace News
The Peace River Prospectors won their final game of the regular season to finish fourth in the Peace Country Bantam Football League.
The Prospectors were scheduled to play a semifinal game Oct. 28 in Grande Prairie.
Peace River defeated the Wembley Bulldogs 34-2 at home to end the regular season with a record of 4-2-1.
“With our fourth-place finish, we qualify for the Horner Cup playoffs,” co-head coach Josh Scott says.
Teams that finished in the top four play for the Horner Cup while the bottom four battle for the Rempel Cup.
Peace River was scheduled to face the Grande Prairie Broncos who finished first in the league with a record of 6-0-1.
The coach is optimistic about the Prospectors entering the playoffs.
“I am excited – this team has overcome a lot this season and worked hard to get to where we are at,” Scott says.
“We might have low numbers of players but we are a strong team and proved that to others already.”
He says the players were already getting hyped up in practices focusing on the task at hand days before the playoff game.
The Prospectors hoped to keep the momentum going after their decisive win over Wembley.
“The game opened up with a defensive battle,” Scott says.
Neither team could score until the second quarter when Wembley tallied two points on a safety. The Prospectors immediately turned it around and scored a touchdown on their next possession to lead 6-2 and never looked back.
“Our defence played a big role in this, making stop after stop,” Scott says.
“We stressed that every play we needed to put the quarterback in a high-pressure situation to cause forced throws and they stepped up.
“Wembley is a good team and we practised coverage all week before the game in anticipation of it.”