Prince Baffoh’s ‘scoop n score’ leads colts to victory over Huskies

With his fleet feet and his jackhammer tackles, Prince Baffoh is a terrifying sight to behold on the gridiron. But the Calgary Colts’ rush end also demonstrated some pretty soft hands Saturday night.

Baffoh, the 21-year-old from Hamilton, Ont., dove in and broke up a handoff between Edmonton Huskies quarterback Ben Gorniak and running back Pierce McAllister during the second quarter. Baffoh then picked himself up off the turf, nabbed up the bouncing ball on the run, and rumbled 46 yards to paydirt at McMahon Stadium.

The pivotal play early in the second quarter staked the Colts to a 14-0 lead in a Prairie Football Conference game they’d win 24-10.

“I just wanted to get that sack or that tackle. But as soon as I hit ’em, I knew that ball was coming out,” reflected the six-foot-three, 245-pound Baffoh (3rd year, Hamilton, Ont., BCFC Vancouver). “I just rolled over, got up and grabbed it. And from there, I did naturally what any athlete would do — just scoop ’n’ score.”

It took 118 minutes and 54 seconds of this young PFC season, but Keith Kendal’s Colts (2-0) finally surrendered a touchdown with 1:06 remaining in the fourth quarter on a 20-yard strike from Gorniak to Yannick L’Abbe.

Other than that, the Colts’ defence kept Gorniak, the Canadian Junior Football League’s reigning offensive player of the week, off guard all night. Baffoh also sacked Gorniak twice, defensive lineman Calder Brown (3rd year, Calgary, CIS Calgary) made 1.5 sacks, linebacker Jase Skelton (3rd year, Medicine Hat, Alta., Medicine Hat HS) knocked down two passes and recovered a fumble, and the defensive corps swatted away eight Gorniak attempts in all.

“This was a game that really challenged our ability to cover the pass,” noted Colts defensive co-ordinator John Stevens, who watched Gorniak air the ball out 34 times. “Overall, I thought our guys played very, very well.

“We didn’t give up any big plays. We consistently were able to pressure the quarterback. And as a result, we were able to limit them to moving the ball in small chunks, as opposed to big chunks.”

In all, the Huskies ended up with 316 yards’ worth of net offence, including 174 through the air, to the Colts’ 250. The Huskies (0-2), who were back-to-back CJFL champions in 2004 and 2005, have lost 26 consecutive games dating back to the end of the 2007 season.

Offensively speaking, the Colts — who’d defeated the Edmonton Wildcats 9-5 in their Aug. 14 opener, thanks to three field goals — got the major monkey off their back on their first possession of Saturday’s game, driving 77 yards and capping things off with a nine-yard TD run by Cuong Thai Lieu (3rd year, Nanaimo, B.C., John Barsby HS). They also put the game away 5:47 into the final frame, when quarterback Clayton Masikewich (3rd year, Calgary, John G. Diefenbaker HS) found receiver Nik Petros (1st year, Cochrane, Alta., Cochrane HS) just in bounds in the end zone for a 13-yard TD strike.

However, beyond Lieu’s 123-yard rushing performance, and the club’s 191 yards along the ground overall, the Colts turned in an offensively uneven performance. All three quarterbacks saw the field, but collectively threw the ball just 12 times, connecting on six occasions.

“It was better than last week. It’s a work in progress, and there was progress,” said offensive co-ordinator Ray Salverda. “Our running game is fine. But we’re still struggling to hit open receivers, and we’re still making mistakes that are correctable. If you want to continue to win later in the year, you have to be able to throw the ball.”