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“We haven’t accomplished anything,” Flory cautioned after offering praise for the way his team played. “We’ve got to understand that. We’re going to watch this one, we’re going to wipe it, and we’re on to Manitoba.”

“We had a lot of momentum coming out of the first two games last year,” added quarterback Kyle Siemens, “and everyone kind of knows and remembers exactly what happened after that. We’re not trying to repeat last year. We’re pretty excited about tonight, but we also know there’s a lot more football left to play.”

Enough about last season: On this Friday night at Griffiths, the Huskies shone. They led 18-0 at halftime, and kept the pressure high over the final 30 minutes. Sam Baker caught five passes for 107 yards and two touchdowns, and Tyler Chow — who missed most of last season with a knee injury — ran 12 times for 76 yards.

Defensively, the defence pitched a shutout — the Huskies’ first since a 32-0 blanking of Alberta on Aug. 31, 2012.

“We just wanted to send a message, you know?” Lokombo said. “We just wanted to get a lot of points, and make sure they don’t score any.

“We were underdogs,” he added. “Everybody has low expectations for us. It means a lot to go out there and put that many points up.”

On the record-book front, Huskies’ kicker Sean Stenger broke the team’s career points record, putting 12 on the board and eclipsing the old mark of 247 set by Dave Osiowy between 1974 and 1978. Stenger now has 254.

The Huskies have talked often about a productive off-season that saw them make measurable physical-testing improvements. Siemens — who completed 17 of 28 passes for 240 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions — was hardly touched by an opponent all night.