Central RB Jacques Van Heerden fights off Vanier's Keegan Arnyek during the regular season.

They've battled all season and for some for four years to get to this point, the Moose Jaw High School City Final goes on Saturday afternoon at Gutheridge Field with the undefeated Vanier Vikings taking on the second place Central Cyclones in the Title Game.

The Cyclones, who have won 20 League Championship, will be making their first trip to the City Finals since losing to the Peacock Tornadoes in 2008, which was the grade nine year for many of this year’s seniors and the first year on the sideline for head coach Colin Belsher.

He says this return trip has been a long time coming for his team, “The four-year players that we have, they started their career playing in the City Finals against Peacock and since then there's been a drought and a lot of it has come at the hands of Peacock and I think it was good for these kids and it was great for myself to finally get over that hump with Peacock and now we get to focus on Vanier.”

The high powered Vikings will be what stands between the Cyclones and a 21st league title.  

Vanier has beated Central in both meetings this season by a combined score of a 51-22, but Belsher says the playoffs are a completely different game, “It's playoff football, you have to play your hearts out and hope good things happen and a couple of balls bounce your way.  Playoff football is a different game all together, regular season goes down the tubes and you just play to win.”

Each team took a different path to the finals in semis with Vanier rolling to a 42-3 win over Estevan, while Central had to battle and beat the defending league champion Tornadoes 22-13 to advance.

Running back Jacques Van Heerden says that game showed them that they can win in any situation, “It really showed some character, the fact that it was 0-0 at halftime and it obviously wasn't an easy game and we knew it wouldn't be, so we had to fight hard.”

Van Heerden has been a big part of the Central’s offence growth throughout the season as they transformed from a passing offence to a well balanced machine.  Van Heerden ran for 157 yards in last week’s win over Peacock.

“I've been pushing it a lot harder knowing the season is almost over and it's coming to playoff time.  My offensive line and my receivers are blocking phenomenally and basically are the only reason that I can gain any yards,” said Van Heerden.

“That's the first game that we've actually out rushed our passing game,” added Belsher. “We've always talked about our rushing game catch up to the passing game and it ultimately passed it in the playoff game.”

Belsher feels his team is in a good position for an unset, “The sky's the limit for these kids.  They feel that they can beat Vanier and I feel strongly as well and I'm sure Vanier feels the same way against us.”

Van Heerden agrees, “They've beaten us twice, but we feel we can win, we feel we're both really strong teams and we've just got to stay focused and not make mental mistakes and that will probably be the deciding factor.”

They’ll find out on Saturday afternoon when the Cyclones and Vikings hit Gutheridge Field.  Kickoff is at 1pm.

We’ll take a look at the first place Vanier Vikings on Friday.

Marc Smith previews the City Final with Central coach Colin Belsher.

RB Jacques Van Heerden.