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The University of Saskatchewan Huskies are on their way to a second straight Hardy Cup championship game after a breathtaking 28-23 win in Canada West football against the Alberta Golden Bears.
“It’s a big win. We had a lot of good things happen out there. Guys overcame and we battled through. It’s a good team win,” said head coach Scott Flory.
Saturday’s game was the Canada West semi-final. The Huskies also won last year’s semi-final on the road against the UBC Thunderbirds. This is their first home playoff win since 2009.
The game didn’t start well for the hosts. Touchdowns from Brad Launhardt and Daniel Bubeleyeni put the Golden Bears up 14-0 with six minutes left in the first quarter.
A 32-yard David Solie field goal with only 35 seconds left gave the Huskies their only points of the quarter.
“They came out, they were ready to go. We kind of got punched in the mouth a little bit at the start,” said Flory.
His team started to pick up steam in the second quarter, starting with two points from a safety just 20 seconds in. Then, quarterback Mason Nyhus completed a nine-yard pass to Sam Baker for the first Huskie touchdown of the game. The score was 14-12.
With just over five minutes left, the Golden Bears offense managed to push to the endzone. Launhardt got his second touchdown of the game on a two yard rush, capped off by a successful point conversion, to put the Golden Bears up 21-12.
Even though a Huskie field goal made the score 21-15 before the half, things weren’t looking good for the home team.
However, things changed quickly at the start of the second half. The U of S tied the game on a 9 yard touchdown rush by Adam Machart about six minutes into the 3rd quarter. Solie’s successful conversion put them in the lead 22-21.
“Our guys… they manned up in the second half,” said Flory.
The defense took over for the rest of the game. The Huskies got two more field goals and the Golden Bears took a safety late in the fourth quarter, leading to the final score of 28-23 in favour of the Huskies.
Nyhus threw for 334 yards. He completed 29 of 44 passes. However, even with impressive stats, he gave the credit to the defence.
“I felt alright. There are definitely some throws I’d want back, no doubt about it. But ultimately, when our defense is playing that good, I know I just have to protect the football,” he said.
He was forced to fall back on the defense as his team lost 164 yards over the game in penalties. Nyhus feels responsible for many of them.
“I’ll take a lot of those on me, but we’ll get that cleaned up for next week.”
Next week, they’re heading off to Calgary to take on the Dinos. It’s the same matchup as last year’s Hardy Cup, which the Huskies won.
Despite last years win over the Dinos, Flory doesn’t want his guys to get overconfident.
“2018 has no bearing on 2019. No, it doesn’t. They’re a different football team, they got a whole bunch of different players, different staff. They’re going to be prepared, they’re well coached,” ha said.
Defensive back Nelson Lokombo had six sacks and an interception in Saturday’s win. He agrees with his coach about not putting too much stock in last year’s win.
“It’s better to prepare for this year’s Calgary team. That’s the best thing to do. The past is done now, we have to focus on the future,” said Lokombo.
The Huskies will attempt to repeat as Hardy Cup champions Saturday, November 9 at McMahon Stadium in Calgary. The game is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. mountain standard time.