In his second season as the Regina Thunder’s starting quarterback, Moose Jaw’s Sawyer Buettner has taken in his game to another level.

Through three games this season, Buettner has thrown for 979 yards and eight touchdowns with just one interception, while helping the Thunder to a 2-1 record in the Canadian Junior Football League’s Prairie Football Conference.

“I worked real hard in the offseason, it’s been a good learning experience over the last two years,” said Buettner, who trained at Ignite Moose Jaw with Ryan Gottselig and Matt Sheridan in the offseason.

Buettner has seen his numbers improve across the board in his second season at the helm of the Thunder.

During his first year as the starter in 2016, the Peacock graduate posted very respectable numbers, throwing for 2,231 yards with 11 touchdowns, but he also had 13 interceptions and completed over 66-percent of his passes in just one game.

“The biggest part last year was getting that experience and making those mistakes, there was a few tough games last year, I made some mistakes where it was tough in the moment, but looking back, you learn from those and I feel like I’ve taken advantage of that,” said Buettner.

This season, Buettner has completed 75-percent of his passes, including going 20-of-24 with 431 yards and throwing four touchdowns, while running for another, in this past Sunday’s 61-7 win for the Thunder over the Hamilton Hurricanes.

He’s thrown just seven incomplete passes over the past two games, which matches the number of touchdown passes that he has in the same amount of games.

“I’m a third-year guy now, so I’m a veteran and a lot of people are counting on me as a leader on the team, so I took it upon myself to train super hard this offseason,” said Buettner.

“I’ve got great teammates around me, great coaching staff, great support staff, so it makes it easier on me. We’ve got a really good organization right now, so I worked hard over the offseason and then with that support system, it’s been a good season thus far.”

The changes on the field have been significant, but there was another change that Buettner made recently as well which may have cut people’s eye. Gone is the trademark long, blond hair that Buettner has had since his playing days with the Toilers.

Buettner said he did it in support of his aunt, Wendy Verge, who was battling pancreatic cancer before passing away on Saturday morning.

“It was something that I could do positively for my family,” said Buettner. “I don’t miss the locks that much, especially when it’s hot out like this, it’s cooler, it takes less time in the shower and it’s good that I could do something for my aunt before she passed.

“My mom told me about her after (Sunday’s) game, but there was a few plays where I threw the ball up and it got where it needed to be, that hasn’t happened before, so many she had something to do with it.”

After dropping their season opener 37-20 to the Saskatoon Hilltops at Mosaic Stadium, Buettner and the Thunder have strung together back-to-back commanding wins, outscoring the opposition 116-14 in those two games.

Buettner said the team wasn’t happy with their start have made a point of working to get back on track.

“In the loss to Saskatoon, we didn’t play as well as we wanted to, we knew we had to improve week-by-week, so we’ve been getting better over these last two weeks and we’ve been clicking as a team and gelling as a team, so it’s been a fun two weeks,” he said.

That culminated in Buettner’s best game since joining the Thunder in this past Sunday’s win at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton.

“That was a big day throwing the ball, when you’ve got a great offensive line like we do, playmakers outside and a great coaching staff putting a good game plan together it makes it easy on me,” he said. “We had a good week last week throwing the ball and another good week this week, so it’s good to keep working and improving.”

The Thunder are focused on continuing to improve week-to-week and they will try to carry the success of the past two weeks over into another showdown with the Hilltops, this time in the Bridge City, next Saturday.

“We’ve been improving week-by-week and getting these big wins improves your team’s confidence and now we’ve just got to stay level headed and focus on the task in front of us, which is Saskatoon in two weeks time, so we’re excited about that,” said Buettner.

The Thunder and Hilltops battle next Saturday at SMF Field in Saskatoon.