McMaster slays football dragon with one-point win
Every team in every sport has an opponent that doesn’t just beat you all the time but carves out your soul, spits on it and then sets it aflame in the process. All while laughing at your pain.
For McMaster, that’s Wilfrid Laurier.
The past three seasons for the Marauders has been one agonizing nightmare after another at the hands of the purple and gold team from Waterloo. Humiliating blowouts, agonzing defeats and a trio of playoff eliminations have all been in the mix. Just an endless string of emotional paper cuts doused in psychological iodine.
So it only made sense that on a beautiful autumn Saturday afternoon at home that was going better than many expected, the Golden Hawks would find themselves lining up for a 43-yard field goal with a minute left to steal the lead and almost certainly the game. Because that’s how the football gods roll.
“Oh yeah,” says Mac kicker Adam Preocanin, who was preparing himself for an inevitable last-second field goal attempt of his own to try to salvage the day. “For sure. We all thought, on the sideline, that it was going through.”
Everybody in the stadium knew it was going to happen. Fate, and all that. So it was no surprise when it left the kicker’s foot on a perfect arc and on a good line and ... missed?
Wait. What?
Yes, as the ball slipped wide of the left goalpost by a foot or two — not by much but by enough — the celebration on the Mac sideline was a satisfying mixture of relief and excitement and whatever other good things you want to throw in there.
A team that has struggled for much of the season but has been getting better lately had just toppled the fifth-ranked team in the country. Not to mention its personal tormenter.
A miracle? The 21-20 victory may have felt like that at the moment.
But what it really was, was evidence that this very young team that’s starting too many first- and second-year players to truly be competitive with the elite of the elites is getting better.
“I think we’re totally starting to believe we can beat anyone if we put it together and play hard every snap,” says linebacker Nate Edwards who led the Marauders with 10 tackles.
The defence has always been more than OK. Even with a trip to London to face Western under their belts, the unit has given up only 100 points. Take out that 44-6 loss to the Mustangs and it’s surrendered just 14 points per game against the rest of the opponents. That’s terrific. Especially since the entire starting defensive line is new and only one member is a fifth-year guy.
The issue has been the offence. Last week it finally found its rhythm in the fourth quarter against the University of Toronto. On Saturday it moved the ball pretty well right from the start of the game. Heck, Mac even scored its first rushing touchdown of the season when Jordan Lyons dove across the goal line in the first quarter.
The running back says everything is starting to feel different. More like it’s supposed to. Nobody’s having visions of the Kyle Quinlan years yet. Still, it’s heading in the right direction. Because of that, the Marauders have completely flipped the script everyone thought would play out for the rest of the season.
Most thought they’d lose this game. That would have had them at 2-3 heading into the bye week with a toss-up game a week from Friday at home against 3-2 Queen’s. Followed by a contest the week after against a muchimproved Waterloo team. Even with a season-ender against a brutal Windsor squad, they could’ve been 3-5 with no guarantee of making the playoffs. Now?
If they play like this again they can beat Queen’s. Their game after that against Waterloo — which lost 67-7 to Western on Saturday, just a day after the Warriors’ quarterback pronounced to the media that his team was better — should be close. Then there’s Windsor. It’s no longer bonkers to think this youthful side could easily finish 5-3. Exceed those expectations even a little bit and they’re 6-2 and hosting a playoff game. Maybe even earning a shocking first-round bye. This win meant that much.
“This was a playoff game,” Lyons says. It was. It was also a game to end a hex and rip a monkey off their back and change opinions all at the same time. To their credit, they did all three.