The Peewee Panthers held their banquet and awards night on Tuesday, Nov. 24 at the William E. Hay Stettler Secondary Campus to honour and recognize all the hard work that the players have put in this season.
With all players in attendance, it was a night of celebration.
Award recipients were:
Most Valuable Player – David Butterwick, Carson Mottus
Most Dedicated Player – Garnett Kromm
Outstanding Offensive Player – Jacob Cottam
Outstanding Defensive Player – Kurt Heidecker
Best Rookie – Zac Schilling
Best Back – Isaac Deaver
Best Linesmen – Jonah Jarmin and Kyle Dennis
Most Improved Player – Cody Paulson and Zac McCord
Head coach and offensive coordinator Ernie Shireff was happy. "I am extremely proud of this team. We were 4-2-1 in our seven games with both losses coming to Sylvan Lake," he said.
According to Shireff, for a primarily first-year team, with 18 of 24 players who had never played football before, the season was a huge success.
"I will not see most of these players play their second year as I will be going back to the Cougar program next year, but there will be only five or six of these kids moving up with me," said Shireff. "That bodes very well for the Panthers next year as they will be a primarily a second-year squad. Hopefully they can follow up this year's success by taking the next step up and compete for a league championship next year."
Zeke Ryan, defensive coordinator, thought he couldn't have expected more.
"Our season was amazing, and the boys were great," said Ryan. "We had a few bumps on the road with one team Sylvan Lake, but this was due to them being much bigger than our boys."
According to Ryan, Panthers are looking to recruit more players for the team next year, both boys and girls.
He described the awards recognition as "fantastic". With Most Valuable Players awards going to Carson Mottus and David Butterwick, "all players received awards but these two had the most heart and soul in the game," he said.