The Creighton Kodiaks played their hearts out in front of a capacity crowd at the Creighton Field on Saturday, and unfortunately saw their season come to a close.
The Kodiaks, who wrapped up their fourth Northern Saskatchewan football title the weekend before met the Shellbrook Aardvarks in the Saskatchewan Provincial Quarter Final.
The Aardvarks stormed on to the field and quickly grabbed a 16 nothing lead on their first two possesions.
Creighton would pull it together when their running back Noah Olivier would run the ball in from the goal line for the Kodiaks first score.
That was short lived, as the Aardvarks Brandon Dingwall would take the following kick off back to the house to restore the two touchdown lead.
Creighton started to get their offense going and QB, Marcus Kennedy would find Myles Patterson with a 40 yard toss that seemed to fire their team up.
The Kodiaks would score two more touchdowns in the second quarter courtesy of running back Noah Olivier and QB, Marcus Kennedy who scrambled in from the 11 yard line to give Creighton their first lead of the day.
Olivier can play defense too, as he made a nice interception late in the half to give his team one more crack on offense.
After Myles Patterson made the two point convert, Creighton would take a 26 to 24 lead into the locker room at the half.
It was the defense's that would show up for both teams in the second half with just one touch down being scored.
Brandon Dingwall who was a thorn in the Kodiaks side all day long, caught a 30 yard pass from QB Jesse Nyberg and took it in for what ended up being the game winning touchdown.
This was a real back breaker with the Aardvarks facing a third and 20, which they ended up converting.
Creighton did have opportunities to win it including Marcus Kennedy airing out a pass to Carson Straile which just went off his finger tips late in the game.
Straile was wide open with no Shellbrook defenders in sight and you could feel the gasp from the crowd in the dieing minutes.
Shellbrook hung on for the 30 to 26 win.
Saying that, it was a great come back from the Kodiaks who still had a very successful season.
Head Coach, Ryan Karakochuk had this to say after the game on Saturday. " It was 24 to 6 and we had guys hurt all over the field and I wasn't sure who to put in. We found a way to score and built on it and I thought we had them coming out for the second half. I give them credit as they made adjustments and we just couldn't find a way to score any more points. All our players played their hearts out and I am very proud of them. We fought hard and we battled til the very end."
