The Steinbach Regional Secondary School outscored Garden City 20-8 in the second half but it wasn't quite enough as the Sabres fell 27-20 to the Fighting Gophers Thursday at A.D. Penner Park in their 2018 Winnipeg High School Football League season opener.

"We started off very engaged," said SRSS head coach Stephen Fedus. "We had a couple of big plays on defense. We were slow with success on the offense and the offense kind of dipped but we responded in the second half. We were very emotionally engaged. We've got to find a way to be disciplined with our engagement and our will to keep competing on every single snap for a full 48 minutes."

Garden City quarterback Jarrett Alcaraz tossed a pair of first half touchdown passes as the Fighting Gophers enjoyed a 19-0 lead at the break.

Payton Falk provided the spark the Sabres desperately needed as he took the opening kickoff of the second half 85 yards for a touchdown.

Garden City answered back as Alcaraz threw his third touchdown pass of the game but the SRSS defense shut the door the rest of the way.

"I think we did pretty good the whole game," said Sabres middle linebacker Isaac Dokken who recorded six tackles in the home opener. "The fourth quarter we clicked on everything and gave our offense a chance but sadly they couldn't come away with the W."

Thomas Peters added a quarterback sack and three tackles.

Matt Huzel recovered a fumble and Cade Penner had an interception deep in Sabres territory to snuff out a Gophers scoring drive.

Quarterback Sawyer Thiessen threw a short touchdown pass to Jayden Martens late in the third quarter.

Martens finished the game with six catches for 90 yards.

Steinbach Regional made it interesting as Thiessen scored on a one-yard plunge with six minutes left in the game to cut the Golden Gophers lead to 27-20.

With the ball at their own 40 yard line, the SRSS defense forced a turnover on downs with two minutes left.

The offense marched the ball down the field but Thiessen's third down pass into the end zone from the Garden City 20 yard line fell incomplete in the waning seconds.

Thiessen, who took off with the ball 10 times for 59 yards and kept drives alive in that fourth quarter, explained how the offense got untracked.

"We stayed focused, kept on our block, kept working and kept saying mentally focus. It was good."

Teg Peters also carried the ball 10 times for 52 yards.

The Sabres next game is Thursday, September 13th at A.D. Penner Park against St. Paul's 2 Crusaders.