Hilltops use full team effort to tame Wildcats

By Dallas Dahlseide

The Saskatoon Hilltops scored a season-high 44 points in a dominating 44-7 victory over the Edmonton Wildcats on Sunday afternoon at SMF Field.

It was the third straight win for the Toppers (5-2), and helped secure second place in the Prairie Football Conference standings and a first-round bye in the playoffs.

Hilltops head coach Tom Sargeant said it was important for everyone on the roster to see the field at some point in the game.

“For me, the best part is we got all the players on the field. We haven’t done that in a long time,” Sargeant said with a smile.

“You can just see the different excitement and energy. The veterans cheering for the young guys, that’s what it’s about.”

The Hilltops got off to a rocking start and never looked back. Running back Boston Davidsen scored on a two-yard run on the opening drive of the game, and then added another major shortly after.

“We wanted to come out and set the tone early and make sure that our presence was felt. We want to have fun, and we wanted to do that by scoring right away,” Davidsen said.

The offence was just getting started, as Lachlan Horsley caught an eight-yard touchdown pass from QB Damon Dutton that helped put the Toppers up 18-0.

Edmonton cut the lead to 18-7, but it would take just 21 seconds for Dillon Heintz to score on a 64-yard touchdown pass to extend the lead.

Heintz credited the dominant offence to all of the preparation in practice leading up to the game.

“Every week at practice for the past three to four weeks, (the) coach has been tough on us, and we’ve been practising hard and grinding with each other, so it’s good. You can tell we’ve got the momentum going into playoffs here,” Heintz said.

There was no slowing down Saskatoon in the second half. Dutton found Josh Wiebe in the back of the end zone for a touchdown, and would add a two-point conversion to Matt Turple to extend the lead to 36-7.

“(It) definitely felt nice to get the monkey off the back there,” Wiebe said after scoring his first touchdown of the season.

QB Trey Reider entered the game in the fourth quarter and linked up with Noah Flaman for a 30-yard touchdown. Even with limited playing time, the rookies on the roster made big impressions.

Even after the blowout victory, the Toppers plan to stay motivated to work on every facet of the game.

“We’re going to turn the tape on, and there’s going to be a lot of stuff that we see that we want to improve on,” Wiebe said.

The Hilltops will close out their regular season on the road against the Winnipeg Rifles on Sunday before shifting their attention to the postseason.

Thunder rallies

The Regina Thunder (7-0) clinched first place in the conference for the first time in franchise history with a 45-42, come-from-behind victory over the host Edmonton Huskies.

Edmonton led 36-20 after three quarters, but the Thunder scored 16 straight points to force overtime. After the teams traded field goals on their first possessions of OT, Edmonton kicked a field goal on its first possession of the second extra session.

Regina got the ball and quarterback Carter Shewchuk threw a yard touchdown pass to Brayden Long for the game-winning TD.

Shewchuk finished with 23 completions in 48 pass attempts for 363 yards with four touchdowns and one interception. Rylan Sokul had eight receptions for 105 yards and three TDs.

Regina is to wrap up the regular season Sunday against the visiting Calgary Colts.