It was not the best of the weeks for Stettler football with two local teams losing to their opponents in scheduled league games.
Wildcats lost 45-28 to Red Deer’s Notre Dame Cougars at home on Thursday, Sept. 24 and returned with an even heavier 63-7 defeat from Lacombe on Monday, Sept. 8.
At the peewee football league, Panthers lost to Olds 30-6.
Wildcats head coach Norbert Baharally said the main problem in his team’s performance this year was that he was not able to get enough of his players to practice together.
“We did not play that good of a first half but I thought we played a strong second half against Notre Dame” said Baharally.
“We are just young and inexperienced right now and every time the team takes to the field, I want to believe they learn something new.”
“Right now, they just don’t realize what it is like to get in a game right at the beginning of the game, it seems like it takes a while to get into it. Once they get into it, we play OK,” said the coach.
“I am not able to get everybody out to practice, we have practices everyday and I am getting out maybe 18 players everyday, and it is not the same 18 players. So it is hard to prepare for games when you don’t have the players at practice.”
“The bottom line is we haven’t been able to get a full team at practice pretty much all year” concluded Baharally.
Panthers coach Gary Sorenson was not available for comment.
Hopes are high for a better performance on home court this weekend when all three local football teams play host to their opponents.
Wildcats will try to win against Wetaskiwin at 4 p.m. on Friday, and Panthers will welcome Bulls, who forfeited their game against Red Deer Steelers last week at 10 a.m. Saturday.
The most promising game, however, appears to be the one between Cougars and their guests from Olds at 12.30 p.m.
Cougars head coach Mike Roach said this weekend’s game would decide which of the two unbeaten teams would go forward still keeping that title.
Roach said he was expecting a tough game.