Night of Reflection for Colts Football at Annual Awards Banquet

The 2018 high school football season officially came to an end Wednesday night in Swift Current, as the Colts held their annual awards banquet.

The team celebrated a 2018 campaign that had its ups and downs - though more of the former than the latter.

Swift Current started out the season with three stout defensive efforts to jump to a 3-0 record.

The Colts opened the season with a 21-6 win on the road against Moose Jaw Peacock.

They then followed that up with a near-shutout victory under the lights at Colts Field against Moose Jaw Vanier, dominating the Vikings 28-1.

Swift doubled up the visiting Weyburn Eagles 32-16 just five days later.

The Colts suffered their first loss of the season in Week 4, as they ran into an historically dominant passing offence from Moose Jaw Central on the road, falling 37-10.

It didn't take long for the Colts to get a W back though, throttling Estevan 51-15 on the road.

The Colts closed out the season against the eventual league champs from Yorkton, as the visiting Raiders claimed a 51-7 win to hand the Colts a 4-2 regular-season record.

Into the Moose Jaw High School Football League quarter-finals, Swift got to host their first round game. The Colts matched up with the Estevan Elecs for the second time in two weeks, again smacking the southeast squad - this time in a 69-22 result.

That meant yet another berth in the league semi-finals, with a chance at a third-straight year in the title game on the line.

The Colts headed to Moose Jaw for a second match-up against the Central Cyclones. The Cyclones' offence had stalled at that point in the season, only edging the Vanier Vikings 2-0 in their quarter-final.

Swift needed just one touchdown to climb past the Cyclones and into the league final, but failed to do so - though the game film may have indicated otherwise. Moose Jaw Central won 8-2 to end the Colts' season.

"We did everything better - we had more offence, our defence played better, we had a couple turnovers... we just didn't score," said Colts head coach Derek Murdoch. "We had a couple chances where we needed to score and we just didn't. We had one score called back. We did everything right, and that's part of growing."

That growth, Murdoch hopes, is motivation enough to successfully clear that hurdle in 2019.

"I think they're going to be hungry, and I think they realize this is a chance," Murdoch said of his returning players. "For our grade 11s that are 12s next year, they're guys that won back-to-back league championships in Bantam. So they know how to win. When you look at the group they played coming out of Moose Jaw specifically, they beat those guys. So we're pretty excited about the group we've got.

"Hopefully they'll work hard in the offseason - August seems like a long way away, but the work that you do through the winter and through the spring and summer - that's where championships are often decided. I'm hopeful that our guys will buy in."

As for reflecting on his 2018 roster, Murdoch said the team could be defined by one particular trait.

"When I think about this group, I think about how resilient we were. We weren't the biggest team - for the first time in a couple years we weren't really physically bigger than a lot of teams, but we worked as hard as anybody. We weren't super old - we played against teams with a lot more grade 12s in the field than we did."

The Colts now graduate 14 players, down from 19 last year and 18 the year before.

"Really proud of our group. Our grade 12 class wasn't as big as we've had in the past, but some big personalities," said Murdoch. "We're going to miss a lot of those guys - some really good football players."

Graduating from the football program are:

#7 - Austin Beverly-Collins (QB/REC/LB)
#15 - Nolan Klein (REC)
#16 - Jaxson Knoblauch (DB)
#25 - Aleah Nickel (DB)
#51 - Sebastien Marchand (LB)
#55 - Anders Mitchell (DL)
#57 - Dawson Abbott (OL)
#63 - George Unger (LB)
#64 - Hayden Linsley (DL)
#66 - Kolby Duclos (OL)
#81 - John Deslauriers (REC)
#83 - Reese Klein (REC)
#87 - Colt Cornelson (REC)
#89 - Kayden Dudley (REC)

Abbott, a graduating guard on the offensive line, reflected on his football career, and what this Colts program means, and has meant to him:

As for the awards portion of the evening, nine individuals were honoured.

The first five awards were based more on on-field contributions.

Rookie of the Year: Carter Moberg

Offensive Player of the Year: Rhett Vavra

Most Improved Player: Sebastien Marchand

Defensive Player of the Year: Ethan Kurtz

Lineman of the Year: Lief Zeeb

As for the final four awards, the 'Heart and Soul' awards, the nature of the honour may not have a statistical value and can be difficult to quantify. Murdoch discussed what qualities tend to factor into these awards: