What a difference a year can make.
The Valley Huskers are back to work, preparing for the start of the 2019 B.C. Football Conference season, looking to build off a breakthrough campaign in 2018.
After muddling along for more than a decade — and going winless between 2014 and 2017 — Chilliwack’s team shocked the league, producing a 6-4 record and a playoff berth.
“It started in game one (a 33-31 home field win over the Vancouver Island Raiders),” said Remis Tshiovo, who was a receiver on the 2018 squad. “The guys who’d been there before with all the losing, once we got that first win they were like, ‘OK. We can really compete in this league.’
“That really opened the eyes of a lot of guys.”
Two weeks later the Huskers beat the Okanagan Sun for the first time ever, and Tshiovo could see the culture change happening.
“We learned how to play as a team and not so much fall apart,” he said. “We still had games where we played like the Huskers had in the years before, but we were able to keep it together, and that benefitted us. It was exciting to see us reaching the goals coach (Bob Reist) set in place for us and this year we’re building off that.
“I’m just seeing growth.”
For longtime Husker observers, last season was an exercise in waiting for the other shoe to drop.
When they lost back to back games in September to the Langley Rams (35-19) and Sun (43-13), the world seemed to make sense again.
But then they bounced back with two straight wins over Victoria’s Westshore Rebels (32-19 and 52-38) and even the most jaded follower had to admit these weren’t the same ol’ Huskers.
Still, entering this season there remains convincing to do.
Was last year a blip? Can they do it again? They’re not catching anyone by surprise this time around.
“That was thrown around a lot last year, the idea that we were surprising teams,” Reist acknowledged. “But we don’t expect to surprise teams this year. It’s a new group. We’re building off the success we had last year and we fully expect to enter games with the realization that opponents will step up and give us their best.
“Rightfully so, and they’ll get ours.”
Reist spent all winter and spring talking up a defence he figures will be dominant.
That unit might be the biggest reason Reist feels his team can not only do it again, but perhaps move into the BCFC’s upper echelon.
The implication, of course, is that the offence will be the second banana, charged with doing just enough to win while not killing the team with field-tilting mistakes.
Tshiovo feels the offence can be far more than that.
“Our defence does have a lot more chemistry at this point with a lot more returning guys, so we’re behind them for now,” Tshiovo conceded. “But we’ve been competing with our D in practice. Our offence was very good last year (averaging 27.2 points per game to rank third in the six team BCFC), and we can be better with improved execution. We had a lot of busted plays and assignments that really killed us.”
Though the O will be led by one of two young quarterbacks — either Reid Vankoughnett or Logan MacDonald — and not a wily vet like Julian Wytinck, they’ll be protected by an improved line and have weapons at their disposal.
“Both of our QBs are pocket passers with the ability to scramble, and they’re both very smart,” Tshiovo added.
Returning receiver Brandon Poulin and newcomer Everett Findley give the Huskers two dynamic options in the passing game.
Tshiovo will be catching less and running more, shifting into the backfield as the team’s top running back.
“I used to play running back so I’m excited to get back to where I started,” he said. “Hopefully I still get my plays at receiver too, but I’d rather be running hard between the tackles. Juking defenders in open space is nice, but the farther I go in football, the more I realize good hard yards is where you wear the other guys down.”
He’ll be paired with Ethan Paul, a downhill runner who will punish linemen and linebackers.
“It’s pretty easy to cover a team that can’t run the ball, so we’ve got to open things up for our quarterback,” Tshiovo said. “ We had a lot of young guys on our O-line last year and there was a lot for them to learn. In junior, you can’t run the basic blocking plays you run in high school. At that level it’s easy to pick a guy and block him one way and that’s all there is to it. At this level there are a lot of guys who can move and there’s a lot versatility on the other side of the ball.
“For our team, our it’s going to be everything establishing the run. We need to run well to open up the passing game for our QB.”
Reist agrees and believes the pieces are in place for the Huskers to have a ground game and a potent all-round attack.
“We’re extremely happy with the development we’re seeing out of our two quarterbacks,” Reist said. “The receiver corps is really coming together, and we added a couple more playmakers last week.
“With the system coach (Blair) Atkinson has installed and the way the boys are picking it up, we expect the offence to be very productive.”
Whether Reist and Tshiovo are right remains to be seen. The first proof comes Aug. 3 at Exhibition Stadium when they host the Rebels.
See bcfootballconference.com for more info.
eric.welsh@theprogress.com