It wasn’t pretty, but the Saint Mary’s Huskies will take the win.
On Friday night at Huskies Stadium, the host team handed the defending AUS champions Acadia Axemen their first conference loss in two years. The Huskies got by the Axemen 14-11.
In the second quarter, the Axemen got the first points of the game as quarterback Evan Brown (Hubley, NS) connected with Taylor Renaud (Winnipeg, MB) for an 82 yard touchdown. With Ryan Begin’s successful conversion attempt, the Axemen led 7-0.
Then, the Axemen conceded a safety to the Huskies. However, with over a minute remaining to halftime, the Axemen gave up a costly turnover to the Huskies on the 2 yard line and the Huskies took advantage of the opportunity. Huskies quarterback Ben Rossong (Sackville, NS) found Melvin Abankwah (Etobicoke, ON) for a three yard touchdown pass to give the Huskies a slim 9-7 lead going into halftime.
In the second half, the Huskies conceded two safeties to the Axemen. Chase Kodejs (Bedford, NS) would provide the Huskies with their only points of the half as he was successful on a 24 yard field goal and also added two rouges.
Abankwah amassed 150 punt return yards on eight carries for the Huskies. Defensively for the Huskies, Jonathan Langa (Etobicoke, ON) registered six solo tackles while Rob Jubenville (Oshawa, ON) chipped in with five solo tackles and three assisted tackles as well as recording a sack.
As for the Axemen, Renaud led the offense with 127 receiving yards on seven catches. As for the Axemen’s defense, Jesse St. James (Pincourt, QC) registered nine tackles (eight solo, two assisted), Drew Morris (Ottawa, ON) chipped in with 8.5 tackles (eight solo, one assisted) and Alex Graham (Ottawa, ON) racked up eight tackles.
“I like wins,” expressed Huskies Head Coach Perry Marchese after the victory. “Ugly wins are better than pretty losses.”
“It sort of felt like last year, we had a chance to win some of those close games and we didn’t and this was a close game and we won it so there’s lots of positives in that but overall and in general, we have lots to work on Our defense was spectacular. We knew they would be. Teams were great and offense struggled again. We talked as a coaching staff last week and we sort of felt like we did not get enough stuff in. We went into this game and should have had more stuff ready for a good team like Acadia.”
It was evident that the Huskies run game needs some work as the team had problems executing it.
“I don’t think I put enough in the run game,” said Marchese. “We were pretty basic.”
“We thought we had some pretty good ideas against them. Their defense is very good and we know they’re going to be very good so we have to do a little bit more on the run game.”
Rossong had eight completions in 18 attempts for 56 passing yards, one touchdown and threw an interception in the game.
“Ben was good,” added Marchese. “The first pick that was on me.”
“We had a plan and wanted to throw a deep ball and touchdown right off the bat. I actually saw that the ball came off his hand funny. He came over and I thought maybe he wasn’t warm, he was a bit nervous but he goes “no, I got hit, let’s do it again.”.” That was 100 percent on me. He actually made a lot of good throws, a lot of great decisions later. We had a couple of guys make some great catches and a couple of the guys made some bad drops. We’ll keep working , we’ll keep plugging away. He was good and one of the reasons why he’s playing is that he protects the ball very well and he showed it today.”
While it appeared that penalties reared its ugly head once again for the Huskies, Marchese drew positives from the game.
“The strange thing about the penalties is that there’s some offsides, some holdings and some standard things but all the teams are going to get those,” explained the Huskies Head Coach. “We do some things on offense that may affect us so offsides and holdings happens.”
I’m pleased there’s not a lot of the 15 yard things. There’s none of the chirping, the late hitting and that sort of thing which will kill you. The odd offside, the odd holding, the odd penalty was there, but there isn’t the bad ones and for whatever its worth, we played this game with class today and won this game. In football games, there are things between the lines that might appear a little bit dirty. In general, it was a gentlemanly game by both teams.”
The Huskies defense came up with another stellar performance while pulling double duty.
“They’re warriors,” reflected Marchese. “They played a lot of the special teams too.”
“We did punt a lot and we had a lot of special teams. It’s a tough, smart group of players. It’s the same as last year. They do not care what the score is. It never matters. They keep playing football. They came up huge today.”
Ultimately, the Huskies will take this winning experience and build upon it in preparation of their interlock game against the Montreal Carabins next weekend.
“It was a win and our defense was excellent,” commented Marchese. “Our special teams were excellent so we take those two things.”
“Offensively, we get back work. That’s what we take into next week.”
As for the Axemen, the turning point of this game was clearly when they gave the ball over to the Huskies in the second quarter.
“We lost because we did not move the ball well on offense,” said Axemen Head Coach Jeff Cummins. “We didn’t string enough first downs together and when we give them the ball on the two yard line, they should score and they did.”
“That’s the only time they did score. They moved the ball a little bit but not very well. Our defense did a nice job of turning them over a handful of times. Our first down production on offense is not where it needs to be and it put us in a little bit of a bind. The biggest turning point and it’s not any secret is giving them the ball on the two yard line. It’s the only time they got within scoring range was the bad snap we gave them.”
Brown had 18 completions in 34 attempts for 227 passing yards, one touchdown and threw two interceptions in the loss.
“Evan played pretty well,” added Cummins. “He made some good decisions.”
“He did a lot of things that can be fixed. He made some decent decisions. His capability was impressive. I thought we protected half way decent but we just need to be more consistent on first downs but Evan did well. He threw a couple of nice balls. We had one called back because we were offside and that would have been a big momentum swing. The play took us 45 to 50 yards midfield.”
In spite of the loss, the Axemen gave props to the Huskies for prevailing in the victory.
“They’re better,” assessed Cummins. “Ben Rossong is a much better quarterback than the couple of guys they had last year.”
“They moved the ball when they needed to and completed some passes. Defensively, they’re very good. They’re very strong. They played without one of their defensive linemen. They’re a good team. They’re going to be a contender obviously. They knocked us off and it’s the first time we lost a conference game in two years. We’re pretty upset about it but it is what it is.”
Now, the Axemen will regroup and prepare for their interlock game next week as the team hosts the defending Vanier Cup champions, Laval Rouge et Or.
“We’ve got to be more consistent,” commented Cummins. “I think if we take care of the ball and if we bring some first downs together, we’ll be a lot better off and if we play like we did tonight, it’s going to be a long, long day.”
“We’ve got to play a little bit better than we did today and we got to be a little more consistent on offense. They’re a good football team. We can’t turn the ball over to them. We can’t give them the ball on the two yard line just like we did tonight. Not a lot of changes from what we did today. I’ll have to see the film. I haven’t seen any film so I don’t know anything about them this year. The last I heard, they have some injury problems but other than that, it doesn’t matter because they’re two or three deep.”
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Photo credits – Mona Ghiz, Ghiz Photography www.Ghizphotography.com
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