Foothill falcons well represented on Team Alberta U18

A Foothills Falcons receiver had a rude welcoming to one of his teammates on the U-18 Team Alberta football club.

Falcon Kris Stretton more than bumped into Holy Trinity Knight defensive back Hunter Turnbull during a scrimmage at the Team Alberta evaluation camp on May 9 in Edmonton.

Holy Trinity Academy quarterback Mark Oness will be calling plays behind centre for Team Alberta at the Canada Cup this summer.

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“I got pancaked,” Stretton said with a laugh. “I was cutting over the middle and he nailed me.”

Stretton and Turnbull might take it easy on one another now because they and three other players from the two Okotoks high schools have made Team Alberta, which will play in the Football Canada Cup in Nova Scotia this July.

The other players are Falcons’ running back Trace McLellan-Eeles and defensive back Devan Karl and Holy Trinity Knight quarterback Mark Oness.

In addition, the team will be coached by Okotoks’ Bryan Brandford who won two provincial titles with Oilfields High School and was the head coach at Highwood.

Stretton was a member of the Alberta U-17 team that finished second at last year’s Canada Cup.

“I thought it really escalated my game,” Stretton said of his Canada Cup experience. “In a regular game there might be one or two defensive backs in a game. At the Canada Cup there are good defensive backs on every team.”

Oness is looking forward to the Canada Cup as a way to put a somewhat disappointing 2009 season behind him and as a giant stepping-stone for the 2010 season; his Senior year at Holy Trinity Academy.

“It wasn’t what I wanted,” Oness said of last season. “We were young and after having such a strong Grade 10 year, last year was frustrating and I got hurt.”

However, Oness had shown enough in his first two years of high school football to earn a recommendation from Knights head coach Matt Hassett for Team Alberta.

A recommendation gets you to camp, but it doesn’t get you on the team.

“I wasn’t overly impressed how I was playing in the practices, but I thought I played well in the scrimmages,” Oness said. “I thought I made some good reads and I passed well.”

There is one pass he would like back. Oness threw the pass that led Stretton into looking like something off a Smitty’s breakfast menu.

Oness admitted to leading Stretton a little too much, but said it wasn’t the only problem.

“Hunter is awfully fast and covers a lot of ground,” he said.

Turnbull was cited as the best defensive back at the camp, according to Team Alberta head coach Bryan Brandford, also an Okotokian.

“I knew I was having a good camp,” Turnbull said. “I think my feet are a bit quicker than the other defensive backs and I hit really well at the camp.”

Turnbull also knocked down one of Oness’s passes during the scrimmage.

The Grade 10 student is transferring to Henry Wise Wood High School next year where he will play for the Warriors. The apple does not fall far from the tree as Turnbull is the son of former Toronto Argo defensive back Bill Turnbull.

McLellan-Eeles was the feature back on the Foothills Falcons Tier II provincial championship team in 2009.

Although he has the speed to leave linebackers and defensive backs looking at the bottom of his shoes, he also has muscle.

McLellan-Eeles is just 40 pounds short of joining the Foothills Falcons’ 1,000-pound club, which is the total weight he lifts in the bench press, squat and powerlift.

Joining the 1,000-pound club is a challenge, but so is playing in a national tournament.

“The Canada Cup is going to be a challenge because it will have the best players in the country there,” McLellan-Eeles said.

Devan Karl tried his hand at passing the ball at the Team Alberta tryout, however, he turned out to be more effective on the other side of the ball.

“I played quarterback the first day,” said Karl, a Grade 10 student at Foothills. “I played better when I was on defence. I had a couple of picks.”

Warren Neilson, a defensive lineman for the Highwood High School Mustangs in High River, also made Team Alberta.