Skip to content

Sidhu shakes loose to lead Hyacks to semis

Big games are nothing new for the New Westminster Hyacks' Sammy Sidhu.

Big games are nothing new for the New Westminster Hyacks' Sammy Sidhu.

The Grade 12 running back gave a gridiron clinic on how to create prairie-like open space against a stingy defence, leading his senior AAA football team past the Mount Douglas Rams 19-14 Friday at Mercer Stadium.

The win catapulted the Hyacks into next week's Subway Bowl semifinals at B.C. Place.

Sidhu, who finished with 172 yards on 16 carries, was a big part of a polished New West effort, which saw their defence match Mount Doug's impressive offensive line tackle-for-tackle and kept star quarterback Gideone Kremler on his toes most of the game. From the outset, the two teams locked formations as defence trumped offence over the first half.

Then Sidhu found a hole, and another, as the No. 1-ranked Hyacks built a lead through hard-nosed grit and quick, darting dashes.

"The linemen always create good blocks and big holes for me," said Sidhu after the game. "It's just easy when they give me big holes to run through. ... I was really pumped to play. It was another game at Mercer for our fans."

The Hyack fans went home happy.

A provincial wrestling medallist, the five-foot-10 Sidhu broke a scoreless tie with a seven-yard sprint on a third-and-four play with 1:28 left in the second quarter. He churned it up a notch in the second half, breaking free on a 74-yard dash up the middle with four minutes left in the third frame to again bust a stalemate -- this time making it 13-7.

The Rams had tied it with a long and penalty-assisted drive just before halftime, when Kremler turned a pass attempt into a four-yard touchdown bootleg.

New West's first score was a product of a Taran Birdi interception and return, where the Grade 10 safety bottled up a Kremler pass at the Rams' 44-yard line and brought it inside the 15.

A few minutes earlier, a Mount Doug defensive back intercepted a Kinsale Philip pass at the Rams' own one-yard line early in the second quarter to thwart the first major threat.

"That first touchdown was all because of (Birdi's) interception," noted Hyacks coach Farhan Lalji. "He was able to get it back deep and we were able to get a touchdown out of it... Our offence wasn't able to sustain a drive before that in the first quarter."

After Sidhu bolted free for the 74-yard major, New West increased its lead when Lucas Sabau pulled a lengthy run of his own on a 70-yard run with 3:28 left in the third frame.

Mount Doug didn't fold, however, and pulled within five points on a 20-yard passing play with lots of time remaining.

New West's defence protected the lead the rest of the way.

"With Sammy you know what you're going to get," Lalji said. "Coaches from (University of) Guelph were here watching him but he didn't know it. He gives you a consistent effort, a consistent performance... We have explosive players, whether it's Sammy, Sebastien (Reid), Broxx (Comia) or Lucas (Sabau) and Kinsale (Philiip). We have a lot of explosive players and that's a luxury."

New West now awaits the winner of Saturday's South Delta-Lord Tweedsmuir game.

"The first thing I told the boys in the room was 'This is playoff football. This is big boy football.' All the other games in the regular season are out the window," noted Lalji. "Everybody is going to fight tooth-and-nail because their (football) lives are on the line."

Sidhu said getting the first win out of the way, and continuing the momentum they had built up over an undefeated regular season, should only help.

"We still have lots of room for improvement, that's why we practice," said Sidhu. We've got to work on a lot of things that we didn't execute as well as we wanted at the start (Friday). We can get better."