By Sam Laskaris
The Big Red Machine – a.k.a. the Northern Red Knights junior football squad – continues to chug along steamrolling its opponents.
Northern finished off its 2022 regular season on Friday with a convincing 51-0 win over the visiting Western Tech Colts in a match held at Clarke Pulford Field.
With that triumph the Red Knights improved their mark to a perfect 5-0 and finished atop the standings in their six-team league.
Northern collectively outscored its opponents 239-22 in its five matches thus far.
Next up for the Red Knights is a playoff semi-final contest this coming Thursday, Nov. 3, against the Richview Saints. That match, which has an opening kickoff scheduled for 1 p.m., will be staged at Esther Shiner Field.
The Red Knights handily beat the Saints 60-6 in their regular season matchup one week earlier.
Northern receiver Reilly McMahon believes it’s vital that his squad not publicly display a cocky attitude heading into the post-season.
“I think it’s important to remember Richview is going to be wanting revenge next week after we smacked them last week,” McMahon said. “We’re going to have to go into the game not with the idea that we’re going to be the best team and we’re going to kill them. We need to go into the game with silent confidence and not have a big ego.”
McMahon believes his club will have success if it continues to maintain that frame of mind.
“If we go in with silent confidence, then I think we will win and go on to the finals,” he said. “And if we have silent confidence in the finals, we’ll win the city championship.”
The Red Knights entered Friday’s tilt knowing that they had already clinched top spot in their league standings and the fact that the Colts, who ended up with a 1-4 record, had already been eliminated from post-season action.
“It’s always an adrenaline rush before a game,” McMahon said. “It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, at least for me that is. I’m sure a lot of my other teammates feel the exact same way. And a game is a game. You wake up and feel that blood pumping and as it gets closer, there’s more adrenaline.”
One Northern player that was especially stoked for Friday’s game was backup quarterback Joel Knoke.
That’s because he was given the starting assignment for the match, ahead of Red Knights’ star QB Riley Chalmers.
Knoke said he was told right after the Richview game a week earlier that he would be pencilled in to start against Western Tech.
“I didn’t get to play at all (against Richview) because we didn’t get the ball at all after the first drive in the second half,” he said.
Since he is a Grade 9 student, Knoke was thrilled to make his high school debut as a starter.
