Snow was on the ground and a 6A football provincial title was on the line for Saskatoon’s Holy Cross High School and Regina’s Miller high school in Saskatoon on Friday night.
Miller had beat Holy Cross in their previous two provincial matchups in 2021 and 2023, while Holy Cross were looking to lift the provincial trophy for the first time since 1995.
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Last week, Holy Cross beaten St. Joseph 20-15 in the city finals meanwhile Miller beat Riffel 36-27.
On Friday night, Holy Cross finished off with a historic 21-16 win to capture their first provincial title in 30 years.
In the first half, Josh Ayur scored a touchdown for Holy Cross, while Miller could only muster a field goal, making it 7-3.
Holy Cross head coach Tom Schnitzler, credited his defence.
“Ask any coach in the city, this is a generational level defence,” he said. “The players we had that came together … this group is going to go down in history.”
It took until the final two minutes in the third quarter before Holy Cross’ Jack Tuck found himself in the endzone, making the score 14-3 before Tuck extended the lead to 21-3 with a second touchdown.
“We knew we had to go over the top … an absolutely massive catch by Jack (Tuck) there, I thought he had his best game of the season tonight,” Schnitzler said.
Miller rallied with late touchdowns from Ben Kostiuk and Noah Finkledey but would ultimately fall short 21-16.
“We’ve prepared for those situations,” said Schnitzler. “The defence stepped in, they played tremendous, able to eat some clock and then make them force it down the middle.”
Schnitzler said to finally get the provincial monkey title off their backs was a tremendous feeling.
“It’s unbelievable, the boys worked so extremely hard,” he said. “Our veterans were outstanding and they carried the team all year. They came up big today.”
Scott Hundseth, former head coach for Holy Cross, had never won a provincial title despite a number of appearances.
“(We’ve had) some heartbreakers especially against Miller and LeBoldus … Our boys played hard today, and they deserve it,” he said.
Outside of the team captains, Hundseth was the first person to lift the trophy, finally putting away all the heartbreak he had endured.
“What the boys did there is phenomenal,” he said. “They’re just great kids and they’ve been trying hard for this for a long time and (it) finally came true for them.”
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