THUNDER BAY – The Westgate Tigers were expecting to be a passing team in 2022.
That plan had to be scrapped after Week 1 of the senior high school football season, when quarterback Brock Macsemchuk went down with a possible season-ending injury.
The Tigers had little to worry about.
Led by four Lance Basalyga rushing touchdowns, Westgate rebounded after an opening week loss to St. Ignatius to down the Hammarskjold Vikings 27-15 on Friday night at Fort William Stadium, leading the game from start to finish.
Westgate rushed for 340 combined yards, Basalyga chewing up 192 of them, scoring on runs of 35, 39, three and eight yards.
The individual results don’t really matter, said Basalyga, his team evening its record at 1-1.
“It feels really good, after the loss against Iggy, it feels really good to win,” he said.
“We just went from a passing offence to a running offence and switched like that. We did pretty good.”
Basalyga said his strategy was simple – run where there weren’t any orange and gold Vikings uniforms.
It worked out well.
“I saw a lot of holes and I just ran through them, he said. It was great blocking.”
Tigers coach Mike McNally said good football teams just pivot when they have to, admitting they found themselves in a tough spot once Macscemchuk was sidelined.
“We had a short week this week, so we went back to some old-school Tiger stuff that we won some championships with, our fly offence, and we decided to we’ve got to get the ball in our best players’ hands,” McNally said.
“Our offensive coordinators, coach (Mike) Doromko, coach (Jon) Krawchuck did a great job this week to get things ready.”
It’s one thing to have a plan, it’s another to see it succeed.
It made Friday’s victory that much more sweet, McNally said.
“Anytime you’ve got a big o-line, which we do, you know there’s going to be some holes. And you add a little misdirection, it makes the job tough for defences to find the ball. Lance did a great job and so did (Eddy) Dryhorub. And (Nick) Battigelli, running that jet sweep, he’s a great athlete.”
Battigelli had 87 yards on the ground, while Dryhorub chipped in 55 on nine carries.
“(Nick) got a lot of big first downs for us today.”
The Tigers opened the scoring on the game’s first possession, the 65-yard drive capped by a 35-yard scoring run by Basalyga. He’d add his second of the night, a 39-yard scamper, with 51 seconds to go in the opening quarter, Westgate going up 14-0.
A turnover late in the second proved costly for the Tigers, three plays into a drive that had them on the Vikings 35. Instead it was Hammarskjold who found paydirt on a drive that started with a pair of offside calls that set them 10 yards back.
Hammarskjold quarterback Nolen Sloan dug them out of the hole with a 45-yard completion to Kai Aldridge, later hitting Cooper Oikonen from two yards out to get the Vikings on the board, trailing 14-7. But after a penalty wiped out a blocked field goal on the final play of the half the Tigers took advantage of the second chance, Basalyga rumbling home from three yards out to give Westgate a 20-7 advantage at the break.
The Vikings couldn’t take advantage of an early third-quarter Maccus Kuokkenen interception, were stalled on their next drive and Westgate added another touchdown midway through the fourth, Basalyga scoring on an eight-yard run.
Hammarskjold got one back with 2:13 to play, Sloan finding Keaton Cristofaro for a 21-yard touchdown, but the Tigers ran out the clock on their next possession to seal the win.
In other senior football action, St. Patrick downed St. Ignatius 25-23.
