It’s fitting that the Peacock Tornadoes and Swift Current Colts will meet to decide the Moose Jaw High School Football League championship on Saturday afternoon at Gutheridge Field.

The two schools were the top-two teams in the league throughout the season, beating up on the competition on their way to a combined 11-1 record during the regular season.

Peacock enters as the four-time defending league champions and three-time defending 3A provincial champions, while Swift Current is looking for their first league title since 1999.

“Swift Current is a great opponent, they’ve been working real hard over the last few years in building their program and they know that they’re a good team,” said Peacock head coach Blake Buettner. “We’re going to have to really stress our execution and fundamental stuff this week, it’s going to be a tough game.”

Their only regular season meeting didn’t quite live up to expectations with Peacock winning 17-1 against a shorthanded Colts squad as running back Tristan Lockman was limited in the game due to an illness, finishing with 14 carries for -11 yards, while throwing up on the sidelines in between drives.

Swift Current knows that meeting wasn’t their team at full strength and they’re excited to show what they can do on the big stage in the final.

“The fact that we kept that game close with a limited lineup definitely gives a lot of the team confidence, especially because our offence has come a long way, not just with me, but receivers too and our offensive line, so it’s a big confidence booster for the team,” said Lockman.

Going into Saturday’s game, Peacock knows that they will need to stop Lockman to win the game. The grade 12 running back finished the season with 1,385 rushing yards, which put him just short of David Stevens’ 17-year-old record of 1,406.

Lockman, who also handles place-kicking and punting duties for the Colts, did break the single season scoring record with 153 points on the year.

“He’s a big, strong fella that got close to breaking the (rushing) record and they’re big across the board on offence and defence, so they’re a test,” said Buettner.

“They’re very strong, they’re a hard hitting team, so we just have to rely on the five guys up front (on offence and defence) to have success,” added Grade 12 centre Maguire Abell.

Both teams are pretty similar in their styles as Peacock’s offence is also build around a strong running back, led by Dawson Kurz. The grade 12 took over at running back for Peacock for the game against Swift Current, finishing with 132 yards in that contest, and never looked back. He posted 852 yards on 111 carries over the final four games of the regular season, going over 250 yards twice.

The two sides also feature stout defences with Peacock allowing a league-low 49 points in six games this season, while Swift Current wasn’t too far behind with only 75 points against this season.

“There’s so many things that we’re going to have to do well,” said head coach Derek Murdoch. “Both sides of the ball are going to have to have the best games of the year.”

For the Colts, they’ve been building towards this game for the past five seasons after going winless in 2011. It’s been a long road, but the pay could be huge with a win in Saturday’s final.

“We’ve had some tough times in recent history, but there has been that slow growth,” said Murdoch. “Last year we got to the semifinal, but ran into Peacock and in our offseason exit meetings last year, we asked the guys what their goals were and they resounding answer was that we wanted to get to a league final, play Peacock and knock them off.”

Beating Peacock is easier said than done. For some of the grade 12s on the Tornadoes, like Abell, they’ve never lost a game in their high school career. Peacock is currently on a streak of 36 consecutive wins and they’re looking for two more to compete the four-peat of provincial titles.

“They know what they’re doing and we’re going to have to have our best game,” said Murdoch.

“We can’t really worry about how experienced they are, we just need to focus on what we need to do to be success,” added Lockman.

Peacock will no doubt be leaning on that experience and their success in big games over the past four years.

“We have great coaches, everyone is experienced and have been to the city final before, so we know what it takes to be success at this time of the year,” said Abell.

“You can’t be complacent though,” added Buettner. “We’ve got to play hard, it comes down to leadership from our grade 12s – they’ve got a lot of grade 12s on their team that have been there and are going to be hungry – so we’ve got to make sure that we’re on top of our game.”

The two sides hit the field at 1 p.m. on Saturday to decide the Moose Jaw High School Football League champion. We’ll be there to bring you all the action live on Country 100 here in Moose Jaw and the Eagle 94.1 in Swift Current, starting with the Pre-Game Show at 12:55 p.m.