skip navigation

Sun Blast Huskers

By Wayne Moore - Castanet.net, 07/24/16, 7:45AM PDT

Share

A dominating performance in Week 1

The Okanagan Sun rode the arm of Keith Zyla and three defensive touchdowns as they opened defence of their BC Football Conference title in Chilliwack Saturday.

Zyla, who played the second and fourth quarters, threw touchdown passes of 31, 74 and 64 yards in a 56-14 shellacking of the Valley Huskers in the opening game of the season for both teams.

After a shaky offensive start, Zyla took over from Foster Martens and hit Shamar Donelson from 31 yards out on his first play from scrimmage to put the Sun up 14-0.

Nathaniel Anderson took his next pass, on the Sun's next series, and went 74 yards down the left sideline, to put the Sun up 21-0.

Zyla closed out the scoring with a 64-yard strike to Liam Wishart. He finished the game 4-4 for 174 yards and three touchdowns.

The Sun shook off a slow start with five majors in the second quarter in building up a 42-7 lead at the half.

"It was a real sloppy start. Slow to get going," said first-year head coach Ben Macauley, still wet after being doused with the water bucket at the end of his first career win.

"I think it was first-game jitters. This unit has only been together for two weeks now. Some of it is to be expected."

First-year quarterback Foster Martens started the game and had a hard time moving the Sun offence for much of the first quarter.

His only success came late in the quarter when he capped off a three-play, 54-yard drive with a beautifully designed 26-yard scamper.

"The system we have favours Keith a little more...but we weren't giving Foster a whole lot of time to throw the ball and giving him the right plays to be successful.

"We have to do a better job of that as a coaching staff. Foster is a tough and smart guy and he knows where he goofed up in places. He's going to come out and have a better performance next week if he's getting some playing time."

The defence also got into the act in a big way, picking off Huskers quarterback Noah Falconer three times, returning all three for touchdowns.

Defensive backs Jamie Turek (40 yards) and Beck Fullerton (70 yards) both returned interceptions from the secondary, but it was lineman Elias Rodriguez's scamper that still resonated through the stadium after the game.

The 6'3, 250 pounder grabbed a ball, tipped at the line of scrimmage, and rambled 70 yards the other way.

That one could be an expensive one of the coach.

"I made a deal with the defensive line that if one of them scored, I was going to take them out for dinner. All he said to me when he came back was Asian Pear buffet, so it looks like I'm going to the buffet this week," said Macauley.

Kasey Russell rambled five-yards for the other Sun touchdown.

Of concern to the coach was the number of penalties his team took during the contest. The team was flagged 17 times for 175 yards. Fifteen of those penalties were assessed during the opening half.

"The stuff we can't tolerate are the personal fouls and things like that," said Macauley.

"Mental errors happen, but not decisions to make bad plays."

Defensive lineman Jonas Gering didn't make the trip to Chilliwack with a knee injury, while running back Abdi-Nasir Abdi played just briefly during the opening two series before leaving the game.

The Sun will travel to Kamloops next Saturday before hosting the Westshore Rebels in their home opener Saturday, Aug. 6.