Hilltops set to rock ’n’ roll in PFC final against Thunder

Saskatoon aims to shine on big game stage again

Drake Douglas, left, holds on to a deep pass for the Hilltops.

The Saskatoon Hilltops we built for the bright lights of the big game.

Their 23 CJFL championships and 35 conference titles since the modern day version of the club hit the field in 1947 is testament to that. On Sunday, the Hilltops will be playing for their 24^th Prairie Football Conference title and 36^th conference crown overall.

They will host their provincial rivals the Regina Thunder on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Saskatoon Minor Football Field in the PFC final.

The Hilltops first conference title came in their inaugural 1947 campaign when they claimed the Saskatchewan Junior Football Rugby Union championship. They proceeded to win the Saskatchewan Junior Football League four times and claim the Manitoba-Saskatchewan Junior Football League crown seven times. From there, 23 PFC titles followed.

Legendary Hilltops head coach Tom Sargeant said his storied squad is always up for these huge moments.

“It is why we have the tradition that we have,” said Sargeant. “We win big games.

“We’re in a lot of big games. We take advantage of the opportunities. It is who we are.

“These moments aren’t too big for us. We embrace that, we’re excited for it, and we expect to be in them. It is nothing bigger than that.”

The defending CJFL champion Hilltops head into Sunday’s contest sporting a 9-0 overall record and having won their last 21 games overall. The Thunder have a 7-2 overall record and fell to the Hilltops in last year’s PFC final at SMF Field 21-13.

Hilltops QB Trey Reider is the MVP of the PFC.

Saskatoon goes into this year’s PFC final with their 2024 version of “The Triplets” in fifth-year quarterback Trey Reider, fifth-year receiver Drake Douglas and third-year power running back Corbin Ebben. All three were PFC all-stars.

During the regular season, Reider completed 119 of 185 passes for 1,685 yards and 17 touchdowns, while throwing two interceptions. His 119.8 quarterback rating topped the PFC. He picked up honours as the PFC’s most outstanding quarterback, most valuable player and offensive player of the year.

Douglas led the PFC in receptions (58), receiving yards (955) and receiving touchdowns (eight) during the regular season. Over the Hilltops eight regular season contests, he returned 38 punts for a PFC leading 342 yards. The consistent pass catcher claimed honours as the PFC’s most outstanding receiver and most outstanding special teams player.

Ebben ran the ball 157 times for 964 yards and six touchdowns during the regular season, and he got better as the campaign moved on. His rushing yardage total topped the PFC.

Reider enjoys hitting the field with both Douglas and Ebben by his side.

“It obviously helps me out a lot when Drake (Douglas) is catching every ball I’m throwing at him,” said Reider. “When Ebben is running for 10 yards a carry, it really helps us out.

“Corbin (Ebben) has been working hard. Drake (Douglas) has been working hard. That stuff just doesn’t happen overnight.

“It starts at the practice field.”

Corbin Ebben led the PFC with 964 yards rushing.

In the Hilltops two regular season wins over the Thunder, Reider said the team’s offensive line was the reason the venerable club put up the points that allowed victory to be possible. The Hilltops will be looking to their starting offensive line of left tackle Davin Johnson, left guard Erik Barsness, centre Matthew Noble, right guard Jack Erlandson and right tackle Cody Schumanski to have another big outing.

“We’ve been able to control the line of scrimmage,” said Reider. “Our O-line has been doing a great job, and that has been opening up everything else for us.

“I just have to give a big shout out to our O-line for everything they’ve been doing. They’re working hard.”

This will mark the fourth straight year the Hilltops and Thunder have gone at it in the PFC final. Saskatoon claimed two of the previous three meetings.

Hilltops safety Dalton Urban, who picked a PFC all-star selection in 2024, said it is pretty easy to get motivated to play the Thunder in the post-season.

“It is a big tradition,” said Urban. “We always expect to see them at the end of the year.

“It is a long season, but they’re always the team that we have kind of a target on at the end of the year. We’re at this point now. We just have to finish and show up and get the job done.

“They’re always going to be physical. We have to match that, bring our energy, and I think we’ll be good to go.”

Sargeant said both teams have earned their way to get to this point in the campaign. He added the club that plays the best on Sunday will earn the PFC title.

Hilltops RG Jack Erlandson, left, faces Thunder MLB Stephen Smith.

“It is what it is,” said Sargeant. “We’re in the league that we’re in, and we’ve worked hard to finish first.

“They’ve worked hard to finish second, so the best part of all that is we get to host at home. We love home field advantage. We know we have to come out and play our best game of the year, because they’re very well coached and have good players.

“They’re going to come out and play their best game of the year, so we have to match their intensity. We have to match their physicality, and it is just going to come down to who makes more plays that is all it is. That is what it has been the first few times we face each other this year.”

Sun win Cullen Cup to become BCFC champs, other notes

The Okanagan Sun are going to Saskatchewan.

On Saturday at the Apple Bowl in Kelowna, B.C., the host Okanagan Sun raised the Cullen Cup as British Columbia Football Conference champions for the second time in three years. In the latest BCFC final, they downed the Westshore Rebels from Langford, B.C., 23-17.

The Rebels entered the contest as the defending BCFC champions. This was also the third straight year the Sun and Rebels met in the BCFC final.

In Saturday’s encounter, the Sun took a 17-3 lead into halftime of their clash with the Rebels. The Rebels got a pair of touchdowns in the third quarter to even the score 17-17 heading into the fourth quarter.

Sun kicker Liam Attwood hit field goals from 31 and 26 yards out in the fourth quarter to push the Sun out to their six-point win. He made all three of his field goals on the day.

Sun defensive back Easton Fenske picked off Rebels quarterback Ethan Pickard on the final play of the contest to preserve victory for the host side.

Backup Liam Kroeger started at quarterback for the Sun in place of Marek Filipek.

Okanagan improved to 12-0 with the win, while Westshore finished out with a 6-6 overall mark.

With the win, the Sun advance to play in a CJFL semifinal against the winner of the PFC final to be played between the defending CJFL champion Saskatoon Hilltops and the Regina Thunder at 1 p.m. at Saskatoon Minor Football Field.

The CJFL semifinal between the Sun and the PFC champion will be played on Sunday, October 27.

The last time the Sun won the BCFC title in 2022 they advanced on to capture the Canadian Bowl as CJFL champions.

·         A website called Castanet had a game story of the Okanagan Sun’s Cullen Cup victory over the Westshore Rebels to take the BCFC title. That piece can be found by clicking right here.

·         On Saturday in London, Ont., the host London Beefeaters hammered the Quinte Skyhawks from Belleville, Ont., in an Ontario Football Conference semifinal 65-7.  The Beefeaters improved to 7-2 overall with the win, while the Skyhawks finished at 6-4 overall.

·         On Sunday at Acumen Stadium in Windsor, Ont., the St. Clair Saints (8-0) host the Ottawa Sooners (5-4) in a second Ontario Football Conference semifinal at 7 p.m. local time.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

-------

If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.

Sophomore Johnson becomes cornerstone of Hilltops O-line

Left tackle works like he still needs to earn spot

Davin Johnson (#71) sets up a block for an outside run play.

The Saskatoon Hilltops blindside protector on the offensive line doesn’t believe he has done enough to earn any extra attention.

When Davin Johnson was approached about doing an interview for a feature story on himself, he gave the “who me” look.

The 19-year-old Hilltops sophomore then said he hadn’t done anything special. The words downplayed the fact he became a starter at right tackle last season in the team’s sixth game. Playing alongside four other starters in their respective final campaigns of CJFL eligibility, Johnson held the right tackle starting spot for the rest of the season and won the Hilltops team award for rookie of the year.

This season, Johnson is the starter at left tackle on a Hilltops offensive line that had to be revamped due to graduations that occurred at the end of the 2022 campaign. Along with Johnson, right guard Victoire Bikulo is the only other current player that had previous experience starting experience with the Hilltops offensive line entering 2023.

The work of Johnson, Bikulo, left guard Erik Barsness, centre Matt Noble and right tackle Cody Shumanski have allowed the Hilltops to get out to a 3-0 start. With all the teams in the CJFL’s Prairie Football Conference having a bye this weekend, the Hilltops get back at it on Saturday, September 9 when they travel to Regina to face the 3-0 Thunder (7 p.m., Mosaic Stadium) in a heavyweight tilt.

Johnson said one of the things he likes most about playing offensive line is it seems the guys in that position always seem to form their own brotherhood. He believes that has helped the Hilltops offensive line in the early part of the campaign.

“We’re so close, because we need to be so close to have a perfect play,” said Johnson. “We’re very close with all of our guys, and it is great to be close with everybody.”

Still, the graduate of Walter Murray Collegiate Marauders football still gets surprised when any individual accolades or attention comes his way. Being named the rookie of the year for the Hilltops last season was something Johnson was not expecting.

Davin Johnson, right, has started at left tackle this season.

“I was a bit surprised, because (running back) Charles (Sawi) was the rookie of the year for the CJFL,” said Johnson, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 275 pounds. “I didn’t expect it.

“I thought Charles might have got it. I guess ‘Sarge’ liked what he saw. I guess that I improved.

“I was just surprised.”

Johnson grew up playing hockey for most of his years in his youth growing up. From those hockey roots, he is still closely follows the exploits of the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades.

He took up football playing in Saskatoon Minor Football’s North Sask Academy in Grade 8 after being encouraged to try the sport by one of his junior high teachers in Dan Houle, who is a running backs coach with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies Football team in the U Sports ranks.

At Walter Murray Collegiate, Johnson learned more about playing his position from Marauders offensive line coach Jack Sloboda. Sloboda was the starting right guard on the Hilltops 2016 CJFL championship team and starting left guard on their 2017 CJFL title winner.

During his high school years, Johnson also caught the attention of legendary Hilltops head coach Tom Sargeant, who is also the principal at Walter Murray.

“He (Sargeant) had a bit of an early read,” said Johnson. “I remember he pulled me out of a class to come talk to me about football.

“My O-line coach (Sloboda) was also a Hilltop. He really recommended to come to this program with how well all the coaching is. That is what led me here.”

As an 18-year-old rookie last season, Johnson said it was an eye-opener, when he first started to train with the Hilltops. He remembers that he got pushed around quite a bit early in training camp in 2022.

Davin Johnson claimed the Hilltops team rookie of the year award in 2022.

With that experience, Johnson got acclimatized to the CJFL game quickly. He made his first start with the Hilltops in a 35-17 win over the Colts in Calgary on September 25, 2022.

“I was just a little bit more confident with myself,” said Johnson. “It was still not to what I needed to be, but I just got a little bit more confident and just kind of got thrown in that Calgary game.

“I played good enough where ‘Sarge’ didn’t notice me, and then he had confidence in me from then on.”

Johnson said the starting players on the offensive line who were in their final campaigns of CJFL eligibility in 2022 in centre Luciano Jolly, left tackle Jayson Kehler, left guard Jordan Bisson and right guard Ethan Paslowski were huge in helping him out.

“All the fifth years were amazing, because they would coach me up,” said Johnson. “It was like we had five or six different coaches on the field.

“They’d always have their little tips that they would give to help you get better.”

With the graduations of Jolly, Kehler, Bisson and Paslowski, Johnson said things were challenging on the Hilltops offensive line heading into the 2023 campaign.

“The winter practices were a little rough,” said Johnson. “We had guys getting through.

Davin Johnson (#71) and a revamped O-line helped get the Hilltops to 3-0.

“Even into camp, we had guys getting through. We had linebackers that we didn’t pick up. We’ve gotten better.

“As we’ve started to come together we are definitely looking pretty good now. We were a little worried at the start.”

Johnson welcomed being moved from right tackle to left tackle heading into the 2023 season. He played left tackle all through his North Sask Academy and high school days, so he has a lot of comfort taking up that spot on the offensive line.

On top of being comfortable at left tackle, Johnson has found that the Hilltops have done a little better job of focusing in on the present this year compared to last year. He believes that his likely due to the fact a little more time has passed since the Hilltops last won the CJFL title back in 2019 on top of the fact the team is more youthful than it has been in the past.

“This year we are definitely more focused on getting better every day knowing that we have to work harder to try and get to that national championship spot,” said Johnson. “Last year, we kind of had the idea that we were already going to be there.

“In our winter practices, ‘Sarge’ would say he thought of us as like we could be a national championship team. Whereas this year it was you guys aren’t good enough. We are going to work harder and maybe we can get to that national championship.

“It is just more focusing on the everyday trying to get better and just see how far we can go with it.”

Looking forward to the rest of the 2023 campaign, Johnson has more modest outlooks.

Davin Johnson and the Hilltops are truly focused on the present.

“I hope that we become one of the best blocking O-lines in the league,” said Johnson. “I hope we can all work together really well and have fun.”

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

-------

If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.