Stettler Wildcats won an easy victory defeating Ponoka's Broncs 37-8 at their home turf on Thursday, Sept. 10, without facing much challenge but still raising questions for the rest of the season.
Wildcats opened scoring early in the game with a field goal and then scoring their first touchdown in the final minute of the first quarter with Austin Rosland. With a successful two-point conversion, the score stood at 11-0 for the Stettler boys as the teams switched sides for the second quarter.
Wildcats kept on going against the Broncs with no let up in their offensive effort, scoring two more touch downs in the second quarter, first by Clayton Page and later by Jeremy Kirk but failing to convert after each of them.
In the last minute of the first half, a procedural error by the Wildcats brought Broncs to the brink of their first touchdown by placing the ball at the six-yard line of the Wildcat zone, but Wildcats stopped the attempt with a safety: 23-2.
In the second half, Alex Leblanc and Kyle Lawrence scored one more TD each, and with extra points after each of them, the score stood at 37-2 as the game went into its final two minutes, with Broncs scoring their first touchdown ending the game 37-8.
Head coach Norbert Baharally was pleased with the performance of the Widlcats, but concerned about the future of the season. With the team roster down to 28 players in total, and only 24 dressed for the Broncs game, Baharally said it would be a challenge to be able to keep the same performance for the rest of the season with many players taking on both defensive and offensive roles and getting exhausted easily. Factoring in the possibility of injuries, Baharally was concerned about the consistency of performance.
"We are missing depth in both offense and defense," he said.
Asked what he would be focusing on in the future practices, "I will be focusing on being able to get three or four more players," Baharally said.