SPORTS FLASHBACK 1977: Wheelers hold Dutchmen to 9 as Steinbach wins football title

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/10/2023 (617 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Steinbach Wheelers defence put six points on the board the first time Landmark got the ball Sunday, and then spent the rest of the afternoon limiting the Dutchmen to 200 yards in offence to defeat the 1976 champions in the Rural Manitoba Intermediate Football League championship game in Steinbach.

The Wheelers moved the opening kickoff back 87 yards in the three plays, only to lose possession on a fumble as the Dutchmen recovered the ball at the Landmark four. The Dutchmen tried a pitchout in the shadow of their own goalposts, but Wheelers defensive back Darryl Penner knocked down the ball and recovered it in the end zone to put Steinbach ahead 6-0.

Penner added the convert to give his team a seven point lead, with just over two minutes gone in the game.

Landmark’s only scoring in the first quarter came on a pair of punt singles by Jim Fleming and Steinbach led 7-2 after 15 minutes.

Steinbach gained field possession throughout the rest of the quarter and when Fleming fumbled the ball on a third down punt attempt, the Wheelers had the ball back on the Landmark 23-yard-line.

The first play of the second quarter saw quarterback Art Peters find Harv Lane open and he hit him with a 22-yard pass to increase Steinbach’s lead 11. Darryl Penner again added the convert.

Near the 10 minute mark in the second quarter, the Landmark punter conceded a safety touch rather than kick the ball against the wind, to increase the Wheeler lead to 14 points. On the next Landmark series of downs, a two-yard punt against the wind again gave Steinbach the ball deep in the Landmark end. They wasted little time adding another six points to their score; this time on an 18 yard run by Terry Wiebe. Steinbach led 22-2 at the half.

The only scoring in the second half, with Steinbach still dominating on defence, was a 23 yard field goal by Darryl Penner and a nine yard touchdown run by Dave Driedger of Landmark, in the dying minutes of the game.

While Landmark has come up big in the championship game for the past two years, this year they just couldn’t get their offence moving, and the 25-9 victory by Steinbach gave the Wheelers back the championship they lost in 1975.

Steinbach’s Darryl Penner may have led in the scoring department with a touchdown, a field goal and two converts for 11 points, the real star Sunday afternoon was the Les Kehler.

Overshadowed all season by performances by Terry Wiebe, Ken Prociw and Grant McVicar, Kehler came up with a big afternoon. He carried the ball 19 times for 146 yards and caught two passes for another 24. Ken Prociw also topped 100 yards for the afternoon with 16 carries. Dave Driedger was the workhorse for Landmark, carrying the ball 13 times for 91 yards and his team’s only touchdown.

One of the biggest differences in the game was in the punting department, where Lyle Anderson kept Landmark pinned in their own end with seven punts for 200 yards, with his longest at 50 yards.

In overall statistics, Steinbach led in every department, with the exception of penalties. The Wheelers had a total of 290 yards offence compared to 208 for Landmark, and had the ball for 82 plays compared to 61 for Landmark.

While the game got rough in the second half and two Landmark players and one Steinbach player were ejected, penalties didn’t really play a major role in the outcome of the contest, with each team being penalized eight times.