Logan Pepper blew things wide open for the Ballenas Whalers junior football team last week as they cruised to a 53-0 win over the Holy Cross Crusaders.
Pepper had nine rushes in the game for a total of 177 yards for two touchdowns, both of which saw Pepper run the length of the field to paydirt.
In total, the Whalers had seven touchdowns on the ground and one through the air, giving them the big win over the Crusaders.
“The ideal we have is to win every play and be perfect every play,” head coach Jeremy Conn said. “We weren’t there but we were pretty darn good.”
“Anytime you can win like this in the playoffs, that’s a good showing. We made adjustments on defense this week and the kids picked it up real well.”
“Offensively, we didn’t show everything that we had so that was good. When you get up on a team like that, you just keep it simple. We got to play a lot of kids and it was great, a really good team performance all around.”
The win sees the Whalers move on to the semi-finals of the junior B.C. High School playoffs against the Mission Roadrunners.
After having home field advantage for the first two rounds, the Whalers now travel to play in Burnaby for their next game, this Thursday at 2:45 p.m.
“Going through the North Shore, you never know what the weather is going to do,” Conn said. “It’s going to keep getting colder, we’re anticipating that it could get ugly with the weather so we’ll be ready.”
“We’re just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing, keep doing our job that’s the main thing and we’ll let the scoreboard take care of itself,” Conn said.
Starting quarterback Ben Robinson ran for 75 yards and scored a touchdown. He also completed five out of eight passes for 88 yards and a touchdown pass to Connor Knutson.
Knutson had three catches on the day for 80 yards, even with the wind making things difficult for both teams.
“It was nice to see,” Conn said. “Being able to do what we did, even with the wind, it was nice. It was a great day for football, don’t get me wrong, the sun was shining and it was beautiful.”
“It was cold, it was windy, and things could have gone a lot different than they did. But we were able to make our plays and convert on our chances we had and that’s important when it comes to the playoffs.”
The meeting with Mission will be the first between the two teams this season. Considered playoff foes, the Whalers will be looking to keep their perfect season alive and advance to the provincial final at B.C. Place.
“We always end up seeing Mission in the playoffs it seems,” Conn said. “We’ve seen them the last few seasons at the senior and junior levels, so we know what they are all about. We’ll be ready. We’re going to have a good week of practice and come prepared to win another one on Thursday.”