U of S Huskies ground UBC Thunderbirds with 51-14 win

It was a picture-perfect night in Saskatoon on Friday as a cool breeze blew through Griffiths Stadium for 9551 fans to witness U of S Huskies ground UBC Thunderbirds 51-14 in Canada West football action.

The Huskies came into their home opener ranked seventh in Canada in USports football, while the Thunderbirds were ranked eighth. While the two were close in rankings, the score was the opposite of close.

Read more:

“Oh man, playing in Griffith (stadium) especially homecoming, home-field advantage it’s real,” said Huskies linebacker Seth Hundeby.

“Knowing good play (or) bad play the fans got your back, it’s amazing, it’s electric.”

The only scoring in the first quarter came from Huskies kicker Lukas Scott, who drilled his first two of his four field goals of the night, giving the Huskies a 6-0 lead.

“Lukas has been phenomenal,” said Huskies head coach Scott Flory. “He’s only a second year, he’s just getting better each and every week. He’s got a live leg.”

In the second quarter, Huskies quarterback Anton Amundrud aired an 18-yard pass out to Daniel Wiebe, who ran it home for the first touchdown of the game, with Scott’s extra point kick making the score 13-0.

After another Scott field goal extended the Huskies lead to 16-0, Thunderbirds quarterback Drew Viotto found Mark Webb in the endzone bringing the score to 16-7. Scott then nailed his fourth field goal, leaving the Huskies with a 19-7 lead at the half.

The Huskies started the second half with two points off a safety before Wiebe followed up with another touchdown and running back Javin Boynton rumbled into the endzone to push the Huskies lead to 35-7 at the end of the third.

The fourth quarter didn’t hold much for the Thunderbirds, as another safety gave the Huskies two more points followed by an Amundrud touchdown pass to receiver Dawson Lennea, making the score 44-7 Huskies.

Running back Aulain Penner then scored his first USports touchdown to push the Huskies lead to 51-7, before a final-minute touchdown from UBC running back Toluwalope Ayedegbe brought the score to 51-14.

“It’s good anytime you can put up 51 and hold a team to 14 — especially a really good football team like UBC,” said Flory.

“We went into the half, we left some points on the board, we came on the second half and the guys kept plugging away.”

The dominant win is a positive for the Huskies, Flory said.

“There’s just some confirmation of all the work and everything that you’ve done that we can do this,” he said.

“We’re only two games in this season so let’s hit the pause button here for a second and understand that we’re just getting started, there’s a lot of football ahead. Odds are we’re going to lose a football game at some point.”

But it is just one step at a time for the Dogs as they try to limit the outside noise.

“It’s who’s lining up across from us,” said Hundeby. “It doesn’t matter if they’re ranked first, if they’re ranked last, we got to play Huskies football. But next week’s a new week, we have to keep that mentality.”

The 2-0 Huskies now travel to Winnipeg to take on the 0-2 University of Manitoba Bisons on Sept. 13.

— with files by Will Mandzuk

Read more: