Gee-Gees back after dismal 2012,
U of O to face McMaster in conference quarter-final
Ayear ago, Ottawa Gee-Gees football was in near disarray, outside and looking in at the Ontario University Athletics league playoffs and without a head coach following the midseason dismissal of Gary Etcheverry.
Now the Gee-Gees are back in the playoffs, their reward for placing fifth with a 5-3 record in the regular season, capped by Saturday’s 4515 home-field victory against the Windsor Lancers.
Their reward for placing fifth in the standings is a quarter-final matchup with the McMaster Marauders next Saturday in Hamilton.
First-year head coach Jamie Barresi, a U of O alumnus who was hired in January, said he was happiest for senior Gee-Gees who had been through not only last season’s disappointment, but also the departures of Etcheverry’s predecessor, Jean-Philippe Asselin, and other coaches who joined the revived Carleton Ravens.
Those seniors, according to Barresi, went so far as to tell him which players to recruit and how to do so.
“They literally carried the program,” Barresi said. “They carried the program in the locker-room, they had great leadership. I’m happy for them, that they could get back to where (Gee-Gees football) used to be when they came here.
“They came here with a promise. This was a really good program when they came here. Now they can at least have a winning record.”
Barresi would have been even happier if quarterback Aaron Colbon hadn’t thrown interceptions in the Lancers’ end-zone late in the second quarter and near the GeeGees’ goal-line early in the fourth and if Ottawa hadn’t lapsed into another display of flag football: 13 penalties for 125 yards and a halfdozen first downs for Windsor.
That continued a season-long trend for the Gee-Gees, flagged 11 times or more in five of eight contests.
“Sometimes you’re looking at it and you go, ‘Really?’” said defensive tackle Ettore Lattanzio, who spent much of Saturday’s game in Windsor’s backfield, racking up three quarterback sacks and two tackles for losses. “But, at the end of the day, whether they were legitimate penalties or not, they hurt us.
“I was getting gassed. We are driving hard every play, and those penalties take us back.”
The Gee-Gees committed eight fouls for 75 yards in losing 51-24 to the Marauders on Aug. 25. Lattanzio, a third-year player, and fifthyear running back Brendan Gillanders attributed some of the misdeeds that day to it’s being the season opener and the first university football game for some teammates.
Good preparation and self-confidence, they said, would make things next Saturday (Sportsnet, 1 p.m.).
BRENDAN GILLANDERS Gee-Gees fifth-year running back
“I’m extremely satisfied,” said Gillanders, who finished second in the OUA with 740 yards rushing, including 114 against the Lancers. “Everybody that was on the team last year felt like we underachieved, that the team was much better than our (2-6) record.
“It’s nice to come out and finally prove it. We are in the playoffs, and that’s where we belong.”
Colbon, another Gee-Gee in his final season, ranked second in OUA passing yards (2,490) and third in touchdown passes (20), but also tied for first in interceptions (13). He was Ottawa’s second-leading rusher with 435 yards.
Lattanzio led the team and conference with nine sacks.
None of those numbers will matter when the Gee-Gees face the Marauders (5-3) in the win-or-go-home quarter-final at McMaster’s Ron Joyce Stadium.
“After the (August) game, I think everybody felt it was three, four plays that let it slip away from us,” Gillanders said. “If we can capitalize on our chances and limit our mistakes, we’ll play them tough.
“By the end of the game, it looked like a blowout, but we wanted to play them again because we knew we could play them much differently.”
‘Everybody that was on the team last year felt like we underachieved, that the team was much better than our (2-6) record.’