The South Delta Sun Devils have kicked off their 2024 football season looking to build on the success of their 2023 campaign.
The senior varsity team, led once again by head coach Ray Moon, saw its 2023 season come to an end with a provincial semifinal loss to Carson Graham.
“We have a young team, but as we continue with our practices and exhibition schedule it is just about building, building up our team concepts and getting battle ready,” said Moon, who spoke with the Optimist during the team’s first week of two-a-day practices in late August. “We have roughly 17 Grade 12s and 19 or so Grade 11s. We had a good spring…we were successful in all three of our scrimmages, so it’s certainly a work in progress.”
The squad is off to a solid start with a pair of exhibition wins – 17-3 over GW Graham and a 17-10 win last Saturday in Kelowna.
The Sun Devils host the Terry Fox Ravens this Saturday in their home exhibition opener at 1:30 p.m. at Dennison Park. They then play rival Seaquam at John Oliver Park on Friday, Sept. 20 to close out their exhibition schedule.
Moon says this year’s squad is extra motivated to ensure that there is not a repeat performance this season.
“There is a lot of that…extra motivation from the seniors and with the juniors getting beat out in the finals, so between the two groups they have that chip on their shoulder, they want to prove something. They have a goal in mind and some key games that are on the schedule, especially now that we are back in the western conference. There is lots of work to be done to show what we are made of.”
Scott Martens is once again the head coach and in charge of the junior varsity team – a team that lost its first ever trip to the provincial championship to Vancouver College.
Martens has lost a few guys to the senior program and won’t be bringing back a lot of starters.
“But there is a great group of players that were right on the cusp last year in Grade 9 and they didn’t get a lot of playing time because we had so many strong Grade 10s,” he said. “I’m anticipating huge growth from the Grade 9s going into Grade 10. It’s an exceptional group. We have 38 guys out here in the first week of practice, so that’s very encouraging.”
The JV squad is 1-1 so far in exhibition play with a 36-0 opening loss to GW Graham and a 31-12 win at home over Kelowna.
The Sun Devils hosted Van College yesterday (Sept. 11), host Notre Dame on Sept. 18 at 3:30 p.m. and close out their exhibition schedule on Sept. 26 at WJ Mouat.
“We have swapped conferences this year, so we play a lot of AA teams in the regular season. We will have a lot of tough tests in the exhibition schedule, so that’s a good thing,” he said. “We want to build and those tougher games will help prepare us for the regular season and hopefully a strong run in the playoffs.”
