Golden Hawks, Warriors taking on two tough defences
No. 1 Western visits Waterloo, while Laurier hits road to face McMaster
WATERLOO — One team has licked its wounds and moved on, the other has celebrated its milestone victory and done the same.
It’s been business as usual for the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks and Waterloo Warriors this week as both squads put their Battle of Waterloo showdown behind them and focus on the task at hand.
The No. 5 nationally ranked Hawks (2-1), who are coming off a 34-32 loss to their crosstown rivals, return to action Saturday against the McMaster Marauders (2-2) at Ron Joyce Stadium. The unranked Warriors (3-1) host the No. 1 Western Mustangs (4-0) at Warrior Field.
“The guys were down Saturday afternoon and evening, and it was a sombre mood Sunday, but once we watched the film and corrected (mistakes), we quickly moved on to McMaster,” Golden Hawks head coach Michael Faulds said.
“It’s very true in football that you have to have a very short memory and that applies after a win and after a loss. The previous game, win or lose, can’t affect the next game and that’s what we’re focused on.”
Looking ahead to Saturday’s contest, Faulds expects his team to rebound from the Waterloo loss and do a better job of converting yards gained into points. His team amassed 548 yards of total offence against Waterloo and, based on the coach’s measuring stick of seven points per 100 yards gained, the offence didn’t make the most of its opportunities.
On defence, the team will pay special attention to Marauders running back Jordan Lyons, who is second in the OUA with 350 rushing yards in four games. Andreas Dueck is expected to handle the quarterbacking duties, ahead of Cambridge native Jackson White. Both signal callers played in the Marauders’ first three games but Dueck went the distance in last week’s 37-3 win against Toronto.
“Mac has historically been led by their defence and apart from the Western game (a 44-6 loss), they’ve held teams to very little yards and very few points,” Faulds said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us ... but if we want to get where we want to be at the end of the year, it’s a football game we have to win.”
As for the other matchup, Waterloo goes into the Reunion weekend game with the OUA’s top-rated offence and Western responds with the conference’s top-rated defence.
Warriors head coach Chris Bertoia said his players celebrated their win against Laurier on Saturday night and were all business Sunday when they gathered for a swimming pool workout/therapy session that ended with a cannonball contest.
“They’re hungry and they’re focused and they know we’ve got a big, bad animal coming here on Saturday, so there’s no time to sit on our laurels,” said Bertoia.
“They’re the team to beat, the No. 1 team in the country, defending Vanier Cup champs, the entire offence back from last year. Carleton poked the bear Week 1 (Western won 26-23 in overtime) and that woke them up, so it’s a tall task, no doubt, but we’ll definitely give them a go.”
Bertoia points to two areas where his team needs to improve.
First, the defence must stop conceding huge scoring plays, something it’s done in three of four games. Windsor scored on an 84-yard reception in Week 1, Carleton had a 95-yard TD reception in Week 3 and Laurier scored on a 75-yard TD reception.
Waterloo’s running game also needs to be better, said Bertoia. Quarterback Tre Ford leads the team in rushing with 79 yards per game but most of those plays are ad-lib scrambles. No. 1 running back Dion Pellerin is second on the team at 52 yards per game.
Western responds with the OUA’s top rushing attack, with 235.7 yards per game, and the conference’s top rusher in Cedric Joseph at 107.7 per game.
The Warriors haven’t beaten Western since 2001 and Bertoia said his team will use that a motivating factor, just as it did against Laurier, a team it hadn’t beaten since 2002. “Once you are able to compete and then defeat a team like Laurier, which is an outstanding football program, that boosts your confidence and boosts the belief in what we’ve been preaching for the past four years. As I said to the guys, we’re right where we want to be. We’re on the outside looking in, we’re like the shark circling and everyone is looking over their shoulder and wondering what these guys are all about.”
Of note, this year’s U Sports top-10 ranking is decided, on a 50-50 basis, between a Football Reporters of Canada panel and a statistically based rating system.
The ELO system gave Laurier the No. 4 ranking after its loss to Waterloo. The Warriors stayed outside the top 10. Twelve of the 14 voting members had Waterloo in their top 10 and eight placed Waterloo ahead of Laurier.