The Okanagan Sun overcame pouring rain and another flood of penalties to post their second straight win to start the B.C. Football Conference season.
On a miserable Saturday night in Kamloops, the Sun (2-0) led from start to finish despite some sloppiness in a 45-30 victory over the host Broncos (0-2).
There were more highs than lows for Okanagan, but it was far from a dominating performance. Some of the mishaps can be attributed to the treacherous conditions, though the Sun will need a better effort in next Saturday’s home opener to stay unbeaten.
That will serve as an early first-place showdown against the Westshore Rebels, who also improved to 2-0 on Saturday by beating the Vancouver Island Raiders 45-22 in Victoria. That was the Rebels’ first-ever BCFC win over their rivals from Nanaimo. The Raiders (1-1) had opened with a 37-14 home win over Kamloops.
Westshore, which won only two games all last season, has beaten the better teams thus far, also defeating the Langley Rams 42-34 in Week 1. The Rebels’ turnaround is thanks to landing several top recruits and adding former Sun bench boss Shane Beatty to their coaching staff.
Okanagan replaced Beatty with Ben Macauley, who now has two road wins under his belt as a rookie head coach, including the Sun’s season-opening 56-14 blowout of the Valley Huskers in Chilliwack. Langley (1-1) blanked the Huskers 39-0 in Saturday’s other game to round out the Week 2 schedule.
Now all eyes from around the BCFC will be on the Apple Bowl in Kelowna for next Saturday’s slobberknocker between the defending champion Sun and the upstart Rebels. Kickoff is 7 p.m.
At Hillside Stadium in Kamloops, sophomore quarterback Keith Zyla made his first career start for the Sun after serving as the third-stringer last season. Zyla was coming off a breakout in Chilliwack, where he completed all four passes for 174 yards, including three for touchdowns.
Zyla wasn’t perfect against Kamloops — throwing his first interception of the season — but was impressive for the most part. He started off strong again, tossing a nine-yard TD to Layne Hull — a linebacker doubling as a receiver — to open the scoring just over four minutes into the opener quarter.
At that point, Zyla was 5-for-5 with four TD passes on the season. He played the entire first half in Kamloops and also scored on a nine-yard run to make it 14-3 early in the second quarter.
Kasey Russell proved effective out of the backfield for Okanagan, with the big fullback getting more carries than he’s accustomed to but still punching in two short-yardage touchdowns as per usual.
Russell’s first major and a Kamloops safety shortly thereafter kept the Sun ahead 23-17 at halftime.
Russell’s second score came on Okanagan’s first possession after the break, with Foster Martens taking over at quarterback and getting the Sun into the red zone by completing a couple first-down passes to Lliam Wishart and Kyler Mosley.
Martens, who was expected to be Okanagan’s starter this season coming out of the University of Manitoba, improved on his showing in Chilliwack. Martens was able to keep the sticks moving in Kamloops and later added a one-yard touchdown of his own to round out Okanagan’s scoring in the fourth quarter.
Mosley had already put the game out of reach with his three-yard TD run with 5 1/2 minutes remaining in the third quarter.
The game took more than three hours to play, with inclement weather delaying the opening kickoff by 15 minutes, while a steady stream of penalties and injuries slowed the action once it got going.