Lose the turnover battle and you might as well throw in the Hat. The Holy Trinity Academy Knights saw their perfect start to the season snapped in a 24-0 loss to the Medicine Hat Mohawks Friday night at the Methanex Bowl. “We can’t turn the ball over,” said Knights head coach Matt Hassett. “We didn’t play well on special teams and turned the ball over in total, with offence and special teams, seven times and just put our defence in short fields.” The Mohawks were clinging to a 3-0 lead just before the half when they blocked a Knights punt and pinned them deep. Elic Ayomanor scored a touchdown on third and goal in short order to make it a 10-0 advantage at the half. “It seemed every time we did something well offensively we would take a penalty or have some let downs,” the coach added. “It’s a good lesson to learn early on sometimes, to hit reset. It’s one of those games that might work out for us in the end, but a bit of a tough pill to swallow.” In the second half Tanner Winter added a running touchdown, Lachlan Hardiker kicked in his second field goal while the Knights conceded a pair of safeties to round out the 24-0 scoreline. “The second half was a little bit better, again we would made mistakes, we would move the ball more and it was then more of the same,” the coach added. “We couldn’t finish it off and weren’t consistent on offence. “(The Mohawks) were just well prepared for us, they were ready to go and sometimes after a long bus ride you aren’t quite ready and they jumped on us. We knew it was going to be a tough game.” A bright spot for the visitors was the performance of the defensive unit. Despite dealing with bad field position, the Mohawks were held to the two majors along with two field goals. “The defence played well because there were several times where we held them on those short fields,” Hassett said. “Patrick Jelen had a really good game at strong side linebacker. Jack Galan I thought did very well and Michael Peloso.” The Knights get back to work in anticipation of their most anticipated game of the regular season. The Foothills Falcons pay Knights field a visit on Friday at 7 p.m. for the first and only Big Rock Football Conference regular season meeting between the schools. The Knights won the season meeting at Falcons field last season before Foothills got its revenge in winning the Conference title at HTA in the playoffs. “Really, our mindset doesn’t change, it’s just another game, another week where we want to continue to get better,” Hassett said. “Our rivalry with Foothills, last year at this time was a great game, we were able pull it off in the end. “What we talked about after with (Falcons head coach Darren) Olson was this is what high school sports is about, both schools out supporting their guys.”
