Mustangs stampede over Laurier at Yates Cup
LONDON, ONT. — For one quarter, the Yates Cup was quite the contest.
The Ontario university football championship game looked to be developing into an evenlymatched, entertaining shootout, with big plays galore and the Western Mustangs leading the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks 17-16.
But Western turned out to have too much ammunition — primarily running back Cedric Joseph, who ran for 250 yards and three touchdowns — for Laurier to deal with and eventually laid a 75-32 beating on the defending Yates Cup champion Hawks before 3,300 fans at TD Stadium.
The Mustangs outscored the Hawks 26-0 in the second quarter en route to a 43-16 halftime lead and this time, no comeback was in the cards.
Laurier rallied from a 40-19 deficit to stun Western 43-40 on its home field a year ago. It’s been an ongoing story line and one Western players said should now be put to rest.
“Last year was a fluke and I think we showed it today,” Western quarterback Chris Merchant told the London Free Press.
“I told people, if we play that game 100 times we win it 99 times. Credit to them, they are a great team but we’re a better team. It showed on the scoreboard.”
However one analyzes last year, it happened.
Laurier won the 2016 Yates Cup and will always deservedly revel in its stirring triumph.
Games are played to 60 minutes and maybe beyond and the Hawks used every second to rally and win last year. But Western was not to be denied in 2017.
“They (Western players) had to live a whole year hearing about Laurier,” said Western coach Greg Marshall, whose 10-0 team also beat the 7-3 Hawks 29-13 in regular season play this season.
Western moves on to the national semifinals against the Atlantic conference champ.
“For a whole year now I don’t have to hear about Laurier,” Marshall added. “I was asked if I was surprised we hung 75 on Laurier. No, I wasn’t surprised. We hung 66 on Guelph (in the semifinals) and Guelph’s a really good team, maybe better than Laurier.”
Guelph did beat Laurier during the regular season — and pushed Western in a 41-34 overtime loss.
Saturday’s 43-point margin of victory was the second highest ever by Western over Laurier, the Mustangs having beaten the Hawks 56-3 in 2012.
Western’s 75 points are the most scored by a winning team in a Yates Cup, eclipsing the 65 scored by Windsor in 1975 against Laurier. Western now leads Laurier 9-5 in head-to-head Yates Cup matchups.
“They’re just a good team,” said fifth-year Hawks’ middle linebacker and London A.B. Lucas high school grad Brandon Calver. “They don’t do anything fancy, but they have a massive O-line and what they do, they do very well. They’re tough to stop.”
Joseph was the prime beneficiary of the gaping holes opened by that offensive line.
“Cedric played a great game,” Marshall said.
“He is that downhill sort of guy. It’s hard to stop him for three or four yards.
“You don’t have much and then all of a sudden he has six or seven and it’s second and short again. But our offensive line knocked them off the football. You could see after a while, it just wore them down.”
Yet for 15 minutes it seemed the Hawks were ready to go toe to toe. Laurier replied to a 95-yard kickoff return touchdown by Western’s Mike Sananes with a 74-yard touchdown strike from quarterback Michael Knevel to Brendan McCracken to pull within 17-16 after the first quarter, as the teams combined for three touchdowns in 74 seconds at one point. But that turned out to be Laurier’s last competitive gasp.
“There’s a good chance, playing Western, there’s going to be a lot of points scored,” said Laurier coach Michael Faulds. “We were optimistic early on and we got 16 points early, then we just hit a lull in the second quarter. But huge credit to them. In the end, we lost to a better football team.”
Better, due in large measure, to depth. Joseph, who ran for those 250 yards, is the Mustangs’ backup running back though he rushed for 578 regular season yards and 10 touchdowns and has added seven more TDs in the playoffs. He started Saturday in place of regular Alex Taylor, a game-day decision who, due to an injury, was held out.
On the flip side, the Hawks did not run the ball effectively, with prime producer Levondre Gordon out of the mix. Gordon, who averaged 103 yards per game on the ground during the regular season but missed some time with a leg injury late in the season, carried just four times for 15 yards on Saturday. He had 108 yards rushing in the regular season loss to Western in a game where the Mustangs held WLU to 121 total yards on the ground, a trend that continued Saturday. The Hawks had just 88 yards rushing.
Laurier quarterback Michael Knevel, returning from a concussion, threw for 432 yards and three touchdowns while completing 25 of 49 attempts. McCracken had six catches for 152 yards while league MVP Kurleigh Gittens, Jr. had 119 yards on as many receptions.
Faulds labelled Knevel’s performance as “phenomenal.”
But it wasn’t enough against a ferocious Western defence.
Faulds said Gordon wasn’t hurt, noting that the game plan as designed did work for one quarter.
“Our plan was to spread it around and throw the ball more,” Faulds said. “But in the end we came up against a really well-oiled machine.”
Yannick Harou with two, Merchant, Harry McMaster and Brett Ellerman scored the other Western TDs while Marc Liegghio added three field goals and a punt single to his nine extra points.
Laurier conceded a safety to account for Western’s other points. Brentyn Hall, Stu Smith and Mario Villamizar scored the other Laurier touchdowns, all converted by Nathan Mesher. A two-point convert rush by Knevel and a conceded Western safety rounded out Laurier’s scoring.