The Sacred Heart Saints senior football team improved their record and kept hold of first place in the East Central 9-man football league with an impressive 46-20 win in Swan River Thursday night.
The Saints avenged two losses to Swan River last season by pulling out to a 44-6 halftime lead. The Saints scored majors on their first offensive possession, and never looked back. Running back Preston Liebrecht returned to action for the first time this season, and electrified the crowd with touchdown runs of 26 and 65 yards. Liebrecht led the Saints offence with 143 rushing yards.
Defensively, the Saints physical defense shut down the Swan River running attack in the first half. Defensive leaders were Travis Inglis and Nathan Ortynsky, each with 10 tackles. Inglis and Logan Madson also each had one interception. Also leading the defensive charge were Martin Pearson with nine tackles, and defensive co-captain Dakota German with eight tackles.
Saints special teams also had a big day, with Liebrecht returning a kickoff for a touchdown, and Robert Okeny returning a punt for a 53-yard touchdown. Okeny was also perfect at each of his convert attempts.
Saints head coach Trent Senger said, "I liked the way we started the game on both sides of the ball. It was a long bus trip, we were missing at least three starters, it was a rainy day, and we had two tough losses to Swan River last year. This is never an easy place to play - you know Swan always plays a physical game. Our guys responded well to the challenge we put out to them this week. The conditioning our team has been doing really paid off.
There are a number of things we do need to keep working on. Our offence stalled in the second half when Swan River blitzed a little more, and we gave up a few plays on defence and got sloppy on some of our technique. We know we need to correct some of those things if we are going to go anywhere in playoffs."
The next action for the Saints team is on Thursday as they host Esterhazy at 4:00 p.m.
