BOXSCORE
Acadia opened the scoring when SMU conceded a safety in the first quarter, the only points of the opening frame. Axemen quarterback Kyle Graves connected with Taylor Renaud for a 21 yard touchdown pass mid way through the 2nd quarter. Kicker Thomas Blight booted a 17 yard field goal to give the Axemen a 12-0 lead going into half.
In the third quarter of the game, the Huskies finally got their offensive game going as receiver Kevin Wuthrich scored a major on a 40 yard pass from quarterback Drew Jacobson. Along with kicker Brett Lauther’s successful conversion attempt, the Huskies trailed the Axemen by a five point margin.
However, the Axemen increased their lead as Graves connected with Scott Kelly for a 12 yard touchdown pass at 9:39 of the quarter. Subsequent to that, Brett Haenni ran into the endzone on a 5 yard touchdown run to bolster the Axemen’s lead 26-7.
Lauther would be successful on 46 yard field goal attempt at 9:11 of the fourth quarter but it would prove to be too little, too late.
Axemen head coach Jeff Cummins said that the key to the win was the play of the team’s defensive unit.
“Our defense played pretty well, keeping them off the scoreboard, keeping them out of our endzone with the exception of one play,” commented Cummins after the game. “That was the biggest key.”
“Offensively, we hit our stride a little bit better in the second half and kept them off balance but they’re a good football team. The key was us not turning the football over and them having two or three turnovers.”
An offensive player that stood out in the Axemen’s victory was Renaud.
“He’s grown up with us over the last three years,” said the Axemen head coach. “He’s become a go-to, deep threat for us and he’s a fantastic football player.”
“He works very hard and he stayed here all summer, coming back from an ACL injury two years ago. He’s done a lot of good things for us.”
As for Axemen quarterback and AUS MVP Graves, it was a day of mixed results on the field. Graves had 14 completions in 32 attempts, 255 passing yards and two touchdowns.
“Kyle made some good decisions and he made some poor decisions,” assessed Cummins in his postgame comments. “He got hit in the mouth a couple of times and it rung his bell a little bit.”
“He made some better plays in the second half and put us in a good position in a lot of ways. We still want him to grow, make plays and be the MVP that he was a year ago. He took a few shots here at the end of the game so we’re going to have to take a look at him and make sure he’s okay.”
Meanwhile, it was apparent in the first half that the Huskies continued to struggle with their offensive game. While the unit’s play improved in the second half, it was too little too late.
“It was our inability on offense to move the ball early,” reflected Huskies head coach Perry Marchese. “We certainly found a way to move the ball, found a way to run it, found a way to throw it later in the game, which was great, but we just got too far behind.”
“They’re a great football team so you can’t take anything away from them. They’ve got a great quarterback. Our coverage was all over their guys a couple of times and it wasn’t like they were throwing it into wide open windows. It was just pinpoint passing and fantastic catches.”
This game marked the starting debut for Huskies quarterback Drew Jacobson. Marchese was impressed with the play of the young pivot, who had 20 completions in 38 attempts for 197 passing yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.
“Drew settled in nicely,” added the Huskies head coach. “He exceeded expectations and a couple of the guys said after the game ‘We’ve got someone to work with’ and I totally agree.”
He settled in his decision making process was really good throughout the entire game. He took some hits, popped back up, made some good decisions and good throws.”
Marchese said the defensive unit played a solid game in spite of the loss.
“It wasn’t a breakdown or mistakes,” assessed Marchese. “It was a lot of those were the completions their team was making plays.”
“We made some as well. Our guys always make plays but rarely was it a breakdown. Guys were in good position. They’ve got some pretty good receivers and a hell of a quarterback.”
One consistent issue the Huskies faced was the number of penalties the team amassed during the game. With some of the penalties, it did cost the team first downs.
“It’s a strange deal because I thought from the beginning, we’ve been very good about penalties,” explained the Huskies head coach. “I know we had a couple from our receivers.”
“We has a couple of receivers banged up and they were mentally a little worn down because physically, they were beat up a little bit. The offsides by the receivers-you expect one or two a game, not 10 or 15, I think there were that many. In the first half, we had enough penalties for two games worth of penalties, so we are definitely going to address it. A couple of holding calls, a few holding calls, those happen. You know you kind of hope they happen for both teams, but they didn’t.”
The Huskies will start to make preparations for their upcoming game against the St. Francis Xavier X-Men.
“I haven’t watched a lick of film so, I’ll probably get as much St. FX film done as I can tonight and tomorrow to get a decent game plan in for Monday,” said Marchese.
While the Axemen won their game today, there are some key areas the team will look to improve upon in the coming days.
“We need to be able to run the football a bit better,” commented Cummins. “We need to go ahead and pound the rock a little bit and be more physical.”
“We did some good things on the offensive side of the ball but we were not running the ball as I’d like to so that’s going to be our biggest go to. Another thing would be our cover teams-our kick and punts. Our punts seemed to be pretty well today but our kickoff teams still need some work.”
Like the Huskies, the Axemen shift their focus to their next opponent, the Mount Allison Mounties.
“I haven’t watched them on film at all and everything I thought of in the offseason was with their former quarterback (Jake Hotchkiss),” said Cummins. “With the new guy that played today, he must have played well.”
“We’ve been concentrating on Saint Mary’s and Laval last week so it’s going to be a learning curve for us over the next two or three days, trying to get a beat of what they’re doing and how they’re playing with their new quarterback.”
Photos courtesy of Mona Ghiz
(website: http://www.ghizphotos.ifp3.com/)
(twitter: http://twitter.com/vohra_ameeta)
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