By Nathan Kanter

Senior Vikings camp underway with high expectations

Aug 29, 2017 | 9:01 PM

There is an assortment of reasons to believe this year could be a big one for the North Battleford Comprehensive High School senior Vikings football team.

You can check off the experienced starting quarterback, who is now a senior, in Damon Dutton.

You can check off the talented running back, who is now healthy, in J.T. Lamb.

You can check off the deep receiving corps, which is led by seniors Zach Wolfe and Rhett Taggert.

And you can also check off the strong defensive pieces, led by Zack Weber on the defensive line, who represented Saskatchewan this summer at the 18-U nationals.

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“I think we’re going to hit the ground running,” VIkings head coach Mike Humenny said on Tuesday as the team geared up for its second full practice. “Rather than trying to put a whole bunch of [new] things in, it’s just a matter of making a few adjustments and then going from there.

“Our roster size isn’t as big as it’s been in the past. We’ve normally been between 50 and 55 guys but this year I think we’re going to settle between 40 and 45, which I beleive is fine. All that means is we’re going to have more quality players and we’re going to be able to get better reps in practice if there are better guys all around, across the board.”

Last season, the team bowed out in the 3A Saskatoon league semifinal following a 32-20 loss to the Marion Graham Falcons. They had a 4-2 record in the regular season.

What they didn’t have for much of the year – although he did return for the playoffs – was Lamb, who is now entering Grade 11.

“He’s going to be begin the year as our primary running back,” Humenny said. “He had a bit of a wrist injury [last year]…and we’re expecting really big things out of him this year.”

Dutton will be starting behind centre for the third straight season and will also serve as one of the team captains for the second straight year.

“He’s started every senior game that he’s played in,” Humenny said. “He’s never been injured. He’s taken the majority of snaps in all those games. So he’s going to be a leader for us on offence and we’ve got a number of receivers that are going to be really good: Presley Peterson, Rhett Taggert, Zach Wolfe, all of these guys have been playing for a while.”

The other two captains on offence will be Taggert and Apete Tuiloma. On defence, the three captains will be Weber, Nolan Much, and Trevor Southgate.

The Vikings have nine days before their season opener on the road against Evan Hardy, but they also will play an exhibition game this Friday against Lloydminster.

The exhibition game means practice this week will be a bit different from practice next week.

“This week we’re still basing a lot of things just on getting better fundementally: blocking, tackling, running routes, catching the ball,” Humenny explained. “Whereas next week going into the Evan Hardy game, we’ll look at some of the film of what they did last year and we’ll be able to prepare for an opponent that we know.

“As we go into next week, our top 24 guys, our starters – 12 on [offence] and 12 on [defence] – will be established and those guys will take the majority of the reps in team time and [when] we hit that game next Friday, I think we’re going to be really comfortable, especially because we’re doing an exhibition game.”

With seemingly all the right personnel for a deep run this season, Humenny said expectations are for the Vikings to compete for a city title.

And following through on those expectations will be more about executing than anything else.

“Number one we need to stay healthy and I think secondly we just need to be very strong fundmentally,” Humenny said when asked what needs to happen for the team to find success this year. “I said to the guys last night: we don’t need to come in and really try to out-scheme our opponents. We just need to get down to businees and just be really good fundementally, blocking and tackling. And those are the things that are going to put us in a good spot come October.”

The Vikings schedule sees them begin the year with four straight road games. After their season opener against Evan Hardy on the road on Sept. 8, they have road games on Sept. 15, 21 and 28.

Their home opener isn’t until Oct. 6 against Holy Cross. Following that, they have home dates against P.A. St. Mary and Marion Graham on Oct. 13 and 19, respectively.

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11