It’s two down, one to go on the New Westminster Hyacks varsity team’s tour of B.C. high school western conference football fields.
The Hyacks, ranked second in the province, will take on the fifth-ranked Seaquam Seahawks at the North Delta School’s field Saturday (1:30 p.m.).
The showdown comes on the heels of the Hyacks defeating the previously fifth-ranked Vancouver College Fighting Irish 20-14 at O’Hagan Field last Saturday. The previous Saturday, the Hyacks went to Victoria and beat the Mt. Douglas Rams 29-6.
O’Hagan is a place that hasn’t been particularly kind to the Hyacks in the past, so they were glad to come away with the win. But head coach Farhan Lalji was not impressed.
“It was certainly not an effort we were at all satisfied with, but it was certainly nice to come out of there with a win,” said Lalji. “We’ve gotten past that stuff of playing them and lack of success. This group of seniors has beaten V.C. four straight times from Grade 9 through to Grade 12, so they’re pretty comfortable doing that. So I don’t think that was a big deal for us. It was certainly not something we celebrated on any big level.”
Hyacks quarterback Kinsale Philip completed four passes in the game. Three went for touchdowns, all in the first half. He hooked up with Finn Stark on a 75-yard pass-and-run TD to open the scoring. After the Irish went up 14-6, the QB connected with Matthew Lalim for a 22-yard TD toss and a 10 yarder to Sammy Sidhu. The second half was scoreless as New West mustered just 218 yards on offence.
“Defensively they play us very well, and always have whether their players are good or not,” said Lalji. “They do some really good things, and then sometimes I think we outthink ourselves a little bit and don’t just do the simple stuff we know is going to work. We sometimes get into that where we make too many adjustments.
“We’re trying to find our identity as an offence. I don’t think we’re there yet.”
Lalji said Philip took a big step forward with his poise, command of the game plan and ability to take advantage of what was available to him when he made those big passing plays. It’s the running game Lalji would like to get going, despite the fact New West is 2-0 in conference play and 4-1 overall.
“We haven’t run the ball well. It’s kind of been a weird season that way where we haven’t gotten into a flow. It’s not that we don’t have all the pieces to run well. We’ve got probably the best backfield we’ve ever had top to bottom, and we’ve certainly got very good linemen that can do the job. There’s no reason why we can’t be extremely explosive running the ball,” said Lalji.
“Part of it has been trying to develop that pass game trying to take advantage of other kids, and some of that has come at the expense of really establishing our run game. So I hope as we go here we’re able to both.”
The New West defence? Well, that’s a different story. It held the Irish to just 201 yards of offence.
“They’ve been very good. Our D-line was just lights out. Our run defence all the way across the board was just very, very good. Our secondary continues to get turnovers. They had three completions and we had three interceptions. That’s the second straight game we’ve had three (interceptions). We’ve had three interceptions in three of our last four games. Defensively, we’re doing some pretty good things,” said Lalji.
Before the season began Port Coquitlam’s Terry Fox Ravens were ranked No. 1 with New West second. They’ve both held their positions throughout the fall. But Lalji doesn’t believe his troops have carried their lofty ranking well.
“When I say that, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with No. 2. I think there’s a lot of expectation on this team, and they’ve got to learn to deal with that a little bit. Collectively, we’re trying to build team chemistry. We’ve got a really talented group of individuals who genuinely like each other, but we need to come together as a team a little bit better. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the ranking, it’s just the general expectations.”
He added, it’s a team “that knows how good it is, and they’re learning to deal with that.”
Seaquam’s offence boasts two sons of former B.C. Lions running back Cory Philpot – Jalen and Tyson. The Seahawks are coming off a 55-14 thrashing of the Carson Graham Eagles. It’s a team the Hyacks have never faced before at the varsity level, but this groups of seniors played each other in the AAA junior varsity semifinal two years ago.
“They’re as good as any team in our conference, for sure. We’ve got a very, very good conference. It’s just one tough game after another. It’s part of a stretch of three games away from home. We’ve gotten wins in the first two, and hopefully we sweep those three road games.”
wThe junior varsity team remained unbeaten by downing Carson Graham 47-6 at Mercer Stadium last Thursday.
Greyson Planinsic scored three touchdowns while Dominic Racher, Kirk Bothwell and Andros Dancey got the others. Bothwell’s came on a pass from Dancey.
The JV Hyacks, who have three wins and a tie this season, are in Mission today to play the Roadrunners.
