Another year, another season and another starting quarterback for the Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) Raider senior football team.
The team saw its first all-out practice Saturday morning as 23 hopefuls plus a handful of coaches got themselves out of bed early for a 9 a.m., practice on the YRHS field. For the third time in as many seasons, the Yorkton Raiders will develop another arm as Gr. 11 student Jake Prybylski has been named the newest QB.
"I'm wicked excited," says Prybylski of the prospects for the season in which his coaches will try and change him from his normal position of halfback/slotback to the most important position on the field for any team, the quarterback.
Only four players on the field that morning hadn't previously played football, but Roby Sharpe, Raiders head coach said that at this time of year, the number of guys on the practice field isn't supposed to be that high. Most of those who will be dressed on opening day are still vacationing at the lake or far out of town.Sharpe said that the offence will be relatively young and they will be running the ball most of the time this season.
Following practice, he said he's also hoping for the numbers of players to go up more.
The team will be getting set for their first preseason match coming up this weekend against Winnipeg Vincent Massey, scheduled for a 2 p.m., start at Century Field.
From there, the YRHS Raiders will only see two games, the first of which will be their season opener, Sept. 4 against the Luther College Lions. It will be a 2 p.m., kickoff.
Yorkton travels to Weyburn for the first time in two seasons for a regular-season matchup on Sept. 11 at 2 p.m.
The following week, Yorkton hosts O'Neill. On Sept. 30, they travel to Martin Collegiate to face the Monarchs, a 7:30 p.m., kickoff at Regina's Mosaic Stadium, the site of two games in a row for YRHS. The second game will be against Miller on Oct. 7. Yorkton rounds out their season on Oct. 15 against Johnson Collegiate, a game which is scheduled to be played at the University of Regina.
Playoff dates begin on Oct. 20 and go weekly until Nov. 13 which is the provincial final.
