Hilltops Set For Play-Off Push:

Football Hilltops Top Stories

PHOTOS COURTESY: Steve Hiscock

The Saskatoon Hilltops are heading into the post-season on a winning note after topping the Calgary Colts 37-6 At Gordie Howe Bowl Sunday afternoon.

The win pushes the Hilltops record to 7-and-1 while the Colts will finish the season with an 0h-and-8 record.

Despite the mis-match on paper this game was much closer than some would have anticipated.

The Hilltops opened the scoring on a 10-yard Matt Karpinka pass to Graham Unrah at 12:30 0f the opening quarter to give the Hilltops a 7-nothing advantage. The play, however, was set up by a 29 yard run by Andre LaLonde, his longest of the day.

Hilltops Colts 2The score would remain that way until 9:59 of the second quarter when Calgary’s Andrew Fabian would connect on a 39-yard-field-goal to make it a 7-3 Saskatoon lead.

The Toppers would get that back and more when Karpinka would would find Evan Kopchynski in the end zone from 8-yards out to extend the Saskatoon lead to 14-3.

You could then make it 21-3 when Lalone (pictured left) would bulldoze across the goal line from one yard out to give Saskatoon a big lead at halftime.

After the break the Saskatoon offence came out firing once again moving the ball down the field to the Calgary 15-yard line before their drive would stall. Head Coach Tom Sargent would call on kicker Brent Thorarinson to come out kick one through the uprights from 22 yards out to extend the Toppers lead to 24-3.

Just over four minutes later the Colts Andrew Fabian would convert on his second field goal attempt of the afternoon from 20 yards to cut the Saskatoon lead to 24-6, after three quarters.

In the fourth quarter, the Hilltops began to substitute more freely but were still able to move the ball. That lead to field goals of 15 and 39 yards by Thorarinson.

The Hilltops Colts 3two defences would then dig in and not allow much for either offence to benefit from. The lone breakthrough came at 6:44 of the final session, when Hilltop Quarterback Jared Andreychuk would call his own number from 18 yards out and take it to the house.

That would make the final Saskatoon 37 – Calgary 6.

Statistically, Andre Lalone would lead all rushers with 73 yards on 15 carries, through the air Matt Karpinka was 17/26 for 228 yards 2Td’s and 1 INT. His favorite target was Chad Braun who hauled in 7 catches for 62 yards, while Graham Unrah covered the most real estate catching 5 passes for 98 yards and a touchdown.

The Prairie Football Conference’s play-offs will open next week.

In Saskatoon, the 7-1 Hilltops will host the 3-4-1 Edmonton Wildcats in a tilt that will feature the top two rushers in the PFC. Of note heading into this one will be Edmonton running back Levon Hawreliak who is coming off a PFC single game rushing record. In Saturday’s tie with Regina he carried the ball 40 times for 383 yards.

The second semi-final will see the 5-2-1 Regina Thunder host the 5-3 Edmonton Huskies at Mosaic Stadium.

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