The South Delta Sun Devils Junior Varsity team finished off an undefeated 4-0 pre-season with an impressive 41-14 win over the Mt. Boucherie Bears from West Kelowna at Dennison Park Saturday afternoon.
South Delta scored early and often opening up a 28-0 second quarter lead before the Bears got on the board.
Damian Dumas opened the game with a 19-yard run and with the two-point convert, it gave the Sun Devils an 8-0 lead.
Quinn Sjoberg caught a 21-yard touchdown pass from Rylan Chima to make it 14-0 after the point after was missed.
Dumas then ended the first quarter with a 14-yard touchdown run for a 21-0 lead.
Sjoberg caught the biggest play of the game – a 97-yard catch and run from Chima to make it 28-0 following a Jarred Brown conversion.
The Bears scored on a 58-yard touchdown run midway through the second quarter.
Chima hit Brown for a 32-yard touchdown and then the defence came up with a fumble recovery and a 40-yard return and it was 41-7 for South Delta at the half.
The Bears scored in the third quarter and that concluded the scoring for the day.
Chima completed nine passed on 14 attempts for 235 yards and three touchdowns.
Dumas ran for 97 yards and a pair of scores, while Sjoberg led the receivers with 163 yards on five catches and two touchdowns.
“We came out ready and executed well,” said head coach Scott Martens. “In the second half, as we were getting in some of the second and third-string guys – guys that don’t have as much experience as our first group – we struggled a bit, but I’m okay with that. It’s a learning opportunity. For me it was how did our first group look like and how do we get our second group and third group to get closer to our first group.
“In the exhibition portion of our schedule, we got a lot of guys some playing time and that is going to be beneficial when we start the regular season next week.”
South Delta opens regular season play today (Thursday) against St. Thomas More followed by New West on Oct. 12 and Centennial on Oct. 19. All three games start at 3:30 p.m. at Dennison.
Road games conclude their schedule on Oct. 26 against Terry Fox and Nov. 1 against Seaquam.
“I feel like defensively – we are going to lead with our defence. We’re aggressive, we have athletes who run around and understand what we are doing and do it really well,” he said. “Offensively, we have those athletes, but we have to play clean. We have a solid foundation that we want to keep building on as the year goes.”
