Repeat sweet for Raiders

Michael Rhode, Daily News

A day after the Vancouver Island Raiders won their second straight Canadian Bowl national junior football championship, head coach Matt Blokker gathered with the coaching staff and players to watch the game over again.

It was a continuation of a weekend celebration that started about 3:30 p.m. Saturday and was literally still going on late Sunday evening.

When you win back-to-back national championships, and three of them in the last four years, in just five years of existence, well, you tend to bask in some of the glory.

The Raiders capped a perfect season (13-0), dominating the Prairie Football Conference champion Edmonton Wildcats 51-14 before more than 2,000 fans at Caledonia Park. With the victory, the Raiders became the first B.C. Football Conference club to win back-to-back national titles.

It was a game that was pretty much decided by the midway point of the third quarter, although the customary dousing of the coach with Gatorade didn't occur until late in the fourth quarter.

"It has sunk in more," said Blokker on Sunday. "The one thing for us was the desire to prove, more than any team wanted to prove, that they could win it all, and do it in the fashion they did.

"Last night (Saturday) celebrating with everybody, seeing some guys who didn't want to smile all year, not stop smiling. There's was lots of hugs and everybody got to enjoy it together.

"You take it all in. I just feel so proud of our players, our coaching staff, the organization, and the city, all the people who came and supported us. I thought it was fantastic. It was awesome. I've only watched the game film 10 or 12 times."

There wasn't much celebrating from the home side early. The Wildcats, making their second Canadian Bowl appearance in Nanaimo (they lost 27-26 to the Raiders in 2006), got the early jump, scoring a special teams touchdown by linebacker Mac Olson on a blocked punt.

It was Edmonton that struck for a couple of big offensive plays early, although a promising drive was snuffed out by an Aaron Davies interception in the end zone.

Offensively, the Raiders didn't accomplish much of anything, but after some early jitters, they got things rolling, and it was a live arm of quarterback Jordan Yantz that led the charge.

It was 7-5 Wildcats midway through the second quarter when the Raiders faced a third and three situation at the Edmonton 35 yard line.

Rather than try a long field goal, Blokker chose to gamble. It turned out to be the call of the game.

With the offensive line, affording him lot of time, Yantz, just a split second before he was hammered by Wildcat lineman Rory Connop, found receiver Jared Ralko behind coverage near the sidelines at about the two yard line for a touchdown to give the Raiders the lead for good.

Two more Raider scores before halftime made it 28-7.

Yantz threaded the needle between to defenders to Robin Medeiros for a 35-yard touchdown strike, then with just three seconds left in the half, it was Yantz to Ralko for a 14-yard scoring play.

That came after a successful 26-yard Mark Mueller field goal that the Raiders took off the board.

On the play, the Wildcats went offside, giving V.I. a first down. They made the Wildcats pay dearly for that penalty.

Only briefly early in the second half did Edmonton look like they might get back into the game.

The opening kickoff was fumbled by Medeiros and the Wildcats recovered the ball on the Raiders eight yard line.

One play later, Aaron Watkins caught an Andy Pilon pass to close the gap to 28-14.

Suddenly, the Edmonton bench was alive, and Raiders, sky high on emotion before the break, went a little quiet.

But they came to live quickly, thanks to tailback Andrew Harris.

In his final junior football game, Harris gave everyone something to remember him by, first running through the middle and then to the outside on a 52-yard touchdown that restored the Raiders advantage.

Still in the third quarter, Yantz found Medeiros streaking across the middle for a 20-yard score, then he capped a brilliant day in the fourth quarter, hooking up with Ralko one more time (17-yard score).

It was an amazing day for the second-year Raider -- five touchdown passes, completing 18 of 27 attempts for 353 yards.

"It was a great environment to play in... it was awesome," said Yantz.

A major part of his success was the time he had in which to throw. The line in front of him, guys like Curtis Vizza, Matt Ready, Scott Milton, Bronson Nichol and Travis Schug allowed zero sacks. He had an eternity to find an open receiver on most plays.

"Those guys don't get enough credit for all the things that they do," said Yantz, an easy pick for offensive player of the game. "They're in the trenches, getting dirty for me to make plays and receivers to make catches."

Yantz said the third down gamble started the ball rolling for the Raiders.

"Once we put a couple up, it was just a huge confidence booster for our team," he said.

On defence, lineman Greg Akinola led the team with six tackles, earning defensive player of the game honours. As a group, the Raiders did an outstanding job on quarterback Andy Pilon (12-for-20, 192 yards, one TD, two interceptions).

Star receiver Kevin Wuthrich caught one pass for 12 yards. Only Jerit Lambert caught more than two passes (five for 106 yards).

Akinola, a Winnipeg native, was shocked when he heard he had won the award.

"It didn't even know what was going on. I thought they were just joking," said Akinola. "I had my helmet with me and everything. The guys were saying 'drop your helmet and get up there.'"

For Wildcats head coach Gary Durchik, the loss came down to too many mistakes on the Wildcats part.

"Our defence had them stopped then we gave them a first down on a penalty . . . we did that three or four times," said Durchik. "Against a good football team, you can't do that. If we were the team we normally are, we would have taken advantage or at least moved the football to gain field position but we didn't.

"The game was, they took advantage of our mistakes and we didn't take advantage of theirs."

MRhode@nanaimodailynews.com

© The Daily News (Nanaimo) 2009