Eastman Raiders gunning for U16 football championship
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Princess Auto Stadium may need to be renamed to A.D. Penner Park Field this weekend, as two teams based out of Steinbach will be playing for football glory inside the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ stadium.
The Eastman Raiders locked up a spot in the U16 Manitoba Minor Football Association final Oct. 19, defeating the Fort Garry Lions by a final score of 74-44.
Eastman are undefeated on the season in the U16 division, which plays with seven players on the field for each team.
Steve Baxter is the head coach for the Raiders.
“It’s just another day at the office,” Baxter said immediately after the game.
“We treat each game as a single game. It’s always nice to win, you always want to win… They come out to play every game, and they play hard. We just put the plays together, they’re the ones who have to execute it all.”
Baxter quipped the team is calling the championship the “Super Grey Cup Bowl.”
“It’s just going to be another win, the question is how are we going to get to that win and we’ll figure that out this week,” he said.
The Raiders have a potent offense, suited to the seven-player game, with playmakers at nearly every position.
“We do the same thing no matter whether we’re up or we’re down,” Baxter said.
“It’s just a matter of making small adjustments, where the other team has a strength, to match that strength. Once the strength on our offense or defense negates that advantage the other team has manufactured, we start to go up again.”
While it was obvious just by looking at the scoreboard the Raiders have a strong offense, Baxter was quick to praise his defense’s ability as well, noting they have good horizontal speed to shut down sweeps or reverses, which are key in the seven-player format.
“We have a potent offense, but our defense does a really good job of keeping the other team’s offense in check, so our offensive points count,” he said.
Baxter is in his second year of coaching the Eastman U16 team. He praised the team’s second-year players for helping bring up the first-year players to a high standard.
The Raiders will take on the Falcons Football Club in the final, which will kick off at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 27 inside Princess Auto Stadium.
The U12 Raiders lost to Fort Garry 44-14 in their semi-final match Oct. 20.
Both the Raiders and Steinbach Regional Secondary School football teams will be playing at the Bombers’ stadium this weekend.