YORKTON - The Yorkton Junior Gridders are champions of the Regina Minor Football Bantam Division for 2025.
The Gridders captured the championship defeating the Regina Blues 19-8 at Liebel Field in Regina.
Yorkton went into the final something of an underdog having lost to the defending champions and 7-1 Blues in the regular season, but the Gridders came up big.
“The boys played probably their best game of the season,” offered Yorkton coach Alan Kyle.
Kyle said the Gridders have been preparing all season, and it came together in the final.
“We obviously knew we had a pretty good team. We talked about getting better every week,” he said.
Still the game was a nail-biter.
Yorkton was up 8-0, but the Blues tied the game in the first half.
Then Kyle and the Gridders dug deep into the playbook for a game-changing play.
“We called a naked bootleg and the quarterback (Judah Sarafincian) went 74 yards for a touchdown,” explained the coach.
The Junior Gridders now graduate 22 players to the senior program for 2026, but do have 20 players eligible to return to the Gridders next year too.
Kyle said that is a strength of the team having Yorkton Minor Football building a foundation the Gridders can build on each season.
The championship was the second for the Junior Raiders who won in 2019. They joined the league in 1998.
