Officially, the South Delta Sun Devils' run to a second straight provincial AA football championship began last weekend. Unofficially, it really starts this afternoon.
After cruising to a 52-6 opening round win over an overmatched College Heights team from Prince George, the Devils get down to some serious business at 4:30 p.m. today when they take on Abbotsford's Rick Hansen Hurricanes in quarter-final action at Minoru Park in Richmond.
It will be the South Delta's first legitimate test against another AA opponent since rallying to beat the Hurricanes in exhibition play back in early September. Since then, the Sun Devils went unbeaten in conference play, despite struggling with unranked opponents Holy Cross and Hugh Boyd. They did get a taste of the very best in a loss last month to AAA powerhouse Mt Doug but their lack of domination against inferior opponents was enough to slip to No. 2 in the final provincial rankings.
It's a status head coach Ray Moon doesn't mind one bit and the Devils still won't see top ranked John Barsby or No. 3 Mission until the championship game. Yet, he knows his team will have to be at their very best over the next three weeks to realize their hopes of repeating as B.C. champions.
The Hurricanes feel they are well overdue against South Delta.
They lost a semi-final overtime heartbreaker 35-34 to the Devils back in 2008 when they opted to go for the two-point conversion instead of extending the game with an extra point. Then, in last year's quarter-final match-up, Hansen enjoyed a late 14-7 third quarter lead before the Sun Devils came to life and produced 22 unanswered points.
Adding to the challenge is South Delta likely being without the services of middle linebacker Austin Pearson who is still nursing a shoulder injury from two weeks ago. He is also the team's starting centre on offence. His potential absence comes on top of versatile senior Mitch Dino already being lost for the season with a knee injury.
"This is a game we are looking forward to and you could sense in practice (this week) the kids know exactly what it means," said Moon. "It's do or die time and you can definitely see the intensity is up. On paper, we are a good football team and now is the time to go out and execute in all three areas.
"We have been a slow starting team all season, including the first game against them. That's something we need to be better at as you don't always want to be playing catch-up football."
The Devils wasted little time in determining the outcome against College Heights as Mark Dykstra returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. They went on to take a 29-0 halftime lead. The visitors finally broke the shutout in the late going.
Quarterback Lucas Kirk had a big outing, completing 15 of 18 passes for 243 yards and five touchdowns. His favourite target was Jack McDonald with six catches for 129 yards.
