Central's Jacob Laboccetta makes a grab in traffic against Swift Current on Saturday.

It was a good start to the Moose Jaw High School Football season for the Central Cyclones as they cruised to an early lead and held off a late charge from the Swift Current Colts in a 24-13 win on Saturday.  

“Regardless if it’s one or 30 points, we should be happy with coming away with a win,” said Central head coach Colin Belsher after the win.  “To say we’re where we would like to be at this point, not to sure about that, we did have some sloppy play, but it is the first game of the year.

“I think it’s just a matter of gelling as a team, it’s just a matter of getting those reps in and getting the timing down, and I think good things will happen.”

The game started great for Central as they recovered a Colts fumble on the first play from scrimmage and then were able to drive it into the red zone.  The drive looked to stall there for the Cyclones, but quarterback Bren Forbes took a bootleg into the end zone on a third down gamble for a 15-yard score.

Central’s next drive would end in the end zone as well as Forbes connected with receiver Parker Chow in stride for a 43-yard touchdown strike for a 14-0 first quarter lead.  

They would head into the break with a 17-0 advantage thanks to a 17-yard field goal by Jonathan Phillips with a 23 seconds to go.

That lead looked to be enough for Central to cruise the rest of the way, but Swift Current came out with a long drive to start the second half.  It was capped off by a two-yard TD run by Colts quarterback Grady Lamontagne.

Swift Current wouldn’t be able to get any closer though as running back Bret Shillington scored from six-yards out to put Central up 24-6 with 5:09 to play.

Lamontagne found the end zone again with 1:31 to play on another two-yard TD run.

“I think a few guys thought we could cruise (after the two early touchdowns), but it gave us something to fight for at least because we stopped a bit, but we got the job done,” said Forbes.

He finished the day 8-of-20 passing for 178 yards with one touchdown and rushed 10 times for 79 yards to lead the team on the ground.  Forbes ran on three third down gambles, picking up a first on two of them.

Jacob Laboccetta was his main receiving target with four catches for 87 yards.

“We had some mistakes, but at least it gives us something to work on,” added Forbes.

Central did feature a good balance of run and pass in the win though after leading the league in passing last season by a wide margin.

“We kind of faltered on that last year a little bit, we went a little too pass heavy and it might have hurt us in the final game last year, so we wanted to focus on getting that running game going and I thought they did really well,” said Belsher.

Belsher credited Swift Current for continuing to fight after falling down early, “Swift Current played great.  They’re short on numbers, but they certainly weren’t short on heart.  They came out firing and might have out played us in the second half.”

Lamontagne finished 6-for-12 with 113 yards passing and 11 carries for 22 yards rushing, including the two touchdowns.  

Swift Current’s top rusher was Casper Hoffman, who ran 11 times for 49 yards on the day.

Central will head to Weyburn on Thursday for their first meeting with Eagles.  Weyburn won their opener against Estevan 36-8 on Saturday.  Swift Current will host Vanier on Thursday for their Week 2 game.