KINGSTON, Ont. - The Queen's Gaels remained perfect, holding on for a 27-26 win over the Western Mustangs at Richardson Stadium in front of 3,816 fans on Oct. 17.
Western falls to 5-2 and hosts Toronto Oct. 24 at 1 p.m. at TD Waterhouse Stadium. The Mustangs must defeat Toronto in Week 8 and hope for a McMaster loss against either Windsor or Guelph to get a shot to earn a first-round bye. If McMaster beats Windsor and Guelph, Western would be in position to play in - and likely host - an OUA quarter-final game on Oct. 31 at TD Waterhouse Stadium.
With the win, Queen's improves to 7-0 and clinches first place in OUA and a first-round bye for the playoffs. They travel to play Wilfrid Laurier in their final game in Week 8 on Oct. 24 in Waterloo, Ont.
With 13 seconds left, Gaels quarterback Danny Brannagan (Burlington, Ont.) connected with receiver Blaise Morrison (Bedford, N.S.) on a 30-yard catch-and-run scoring play to earn the win. His scoring play capped off an impressive nine-play, 84-yard game-winning drive for the Gaels.
Despite trailing 14-3 at the half, Western had taken a 26-21 lead with just under a minute remaining after a Nathan Riva (LaSalle, Ont.) 10-yard touchdown run. Riva was efficient, running the ball 19 times for 107 yards and one touchdown, adding three catches for 64 yards.
Michael Faulds (Eden Mills, Ont.) had a 385-yard passing effort, going 25/40 and a touchdown on the day despite leaving briefly in the fourth quarter.
"People were getting really excited on the sideline obviously as you'd expect with a minute something left and we took the lead after being down the whole game," Faulds said of Queen's late-game heroics. "I told the guys not to get excited that we've still gotta stop them and we know they have a high-powered offence."
"We didn't really come out too strong in the first half and then they had a bit of a lull in the third quarter. And then the fourth quarter was back and forth, so it did have that feeling whoever is going to have it (the ball) last is going to win."
Faulds now has 10,261 career passing yards, and is just 194 yards off the CIS career passing record entering the Week 8 game against Toronto. The CIS career passing yards record is held by Matt Connell who racked up 10,455 yards in his career at McGill.
He said breaking the 10,000-yard plateau was insignificant on a day with a loss.
"It means nothing in a loss," Faulds said. "I could throw for 400 (yards) in a game and lose and not be happy with it, but could throw 150 (yards) in a win and be much more happy. So it's probably an honour that I'll look at down the road but 10,000 right now after a loss means nothing."
Marshall said he was happy with Faulds' performance.
"He's a competitor. He did a nice job hurt. we tried to get it to the other guys as much as we could... he's a courageous player and he's our leader and he did a nice job for us today."
Marshall credited Queen's for the win.
"Queen's did a good job of calling the timeout there because I think they realized at that point we were in field-goal range," Marshall said. "I wanted Nathan to score. But you can't choose when they put it in and Queen's has a pretty good defence. We gave our defence a chance, our kickoff team covered the kick and gave us a chance. And they had to burn one of their timeouts. Queen's and Danny did a good job of managing the clock down the stretch."
Brannagan now has 10,424 career passing yards and was 35/52 for 435 yards, two touchdowns and one interception on the day. He enters Week 8's game at Laurier just 31 yards behind Connell
Queen's extended its regular season winning streak to 17 straight games and hopes home-field advantage can lead them to an improvement of a 1-3 record in their past four playoff games.
The Gaels led 14-3 at the half, and it was the Mustangs who dug themselves a hole, throwing two interceptions when pressing and making mental errors, failing to make tackles when they needed to.
Short methodical passing from Brannagan and two interceptions courtesy of defensive back Jimmy Allin gave Queen's the edge in a thriller.
It was a defensive battle early as both offences struggled to take advantage of good field position.
The bright offensive spot for both teams in the opening quarter was Western receiver Zach Bull (Port Colborne, Ont.) who caught a 52-yard Faulds pass on a deep route on the second Western possession, getting open off a fly pattern in behind defensive back Josh Sultana (Etobicoke, Ont.). He would finish with 91 receiving yards in the opening half.
But the Gaels defence recovered, and once again Western was forced to punt from midfield. In fact, both punters were busy early.
A 39-yard Bull catch and run got the ball deep into Queen's territory, as Bull earned extra yards after great blocking from Western receivers down field.
It set up a Lirim Hajrullahu (St. Catharines, Ont.) 22-yard field go to make it 3-0 with just under five minutes left in the first quarter.
The defensive battle continued though with little scoring in the game before Queen`s exploded for 14 points late in the half.
After a great drive starting deep in Queen's territory, the Gaels converted on a third-and-one gamble (entered game 10 for 18 on season) instead of kicking a field goal, as Queen's running back Marty Gordon (Kingston, Ont.) run from 14 yards out to make it 7-3 Queen's.
Scott Valberg (Kingston, Ont.) made Western pay for a number of missed tackles, first Aaron Handsor and then Craig Butler for a 53-yard touchdown to make it 14-3 with 2:21 left in the half.
Faulds hit Hegarty to move the ball into Queen's territory on the next Western possession, and then went straight back to Hegarty, but this time the Western receiver fumbled the ball in mid-air and Allin intercepted it for his second pick-off of the game killing a Western spurt of pressure.
A second-down holding call on Conor Elliot with 40 seconds left in the first half gave Queen's a fresh set of downs, instead of being forced to punt, and it resulted in a march to the goal-line which was thwarted by a goal-line stance from the Mustangs defence.
Gordon could not get in from one yard out with three seconds left, and Queen's led 14-3 at the break.
Western gave up over 100 receiving yards to one opposition player for the first time this season as Scott Valberg (Kingston, Ont.) had 110 yards on seven catches and a touchdown in the first half.
In the third quarter, Western ran the hurry-up offence and got the ball into Queen's territory with a Riva run, a Thomas catch and a Bull catch.
Faulds missed Riva wide open on second down and Hajrullahu missed a 37-yard field goal, but an illegal block on the return off the miss gave Queen's poor field position at their own five-yard line.
Josh Foster (London, Ont.) picked off Brannagan and Western started with the ball at the Queen's 22-yard line.
A screen pass to Bull got the ball to the Gaels' 10-yard line but then on a Riva running attempt which took the ball to the one-yard line, a holding call against Western brought the ball back to the Queen's 20-yard line.
Western settled for a Hajrullahu 15-yard field goal to make it 14-6 with 7:22 left in the third.
On the next Western possession starting at midfield, Nick Pasic (London, Ont.) made a great catch over top of Allin for a first down.
Faulds found a seam connecting with Nick Trevail (London, Ont.) for a 33-yard gain. A few plays later on third and goal, Thomas scored for Western with great movement and push up front from the offensive line to cut the lead to 14-13 for Queen's.
Queen's got the ball at midfield and then a Foster facemasking call got the ball deep in Western territory. Gordon scored his second touchdown of the game, hopping over the defensive line with good blocking to make it 21-13 for Gaels with 11:46 left in the fourth quarter.
Faulds left the game briefly in the fourth quarter but returned to lead a great drive. He connected many times with Riva who ran and caught screen passes to set up a Jesse Bellamy (Guelph, Ont.) touchdown catch.
A failed two-point conversion on the play kept the score at 21-19 in favour of Queen's with 8:30 left.
Sacks from Scott Fournier (Ottawa, Ont.) and lineman Matt Norman (Montreal) - who played on both sides of the ball in the game - forced a Queen's punt and gave Western life.
Riva was magical on the next series, running for two first downs, while Faulds connected with Bull and Trevail for others. Thomas ran the ball up the middle with great blocking for another first down inside the 10-yard line which was capped off by a Riva 10-yard touchdown run, finishing a 93-yard drive on nine plays.
With Western leading 26-21 with 1:16 left in the fourth, Christopher Ioannides (Toronto) made a huge catch to keep hope alive for Queen's on third down and short.
Valberg made two big catches for first downs with Western blitzing before Morrison's winning catch-and-run play, Foster's tackle to score and cap off the winning drive with 13 seconds left.
Queen's attempted a two-point conversion up 27-26, but like Western earlier in the second half failed with Conor Elliot knocking down the two-point convert passing attempt.
Riva and Thomas tried to create something on the ensuing return, but ended up fumbling the ball in desperation.
Other Week 7 Scores
Laurier 21 Guelph 14
Waterloo 30 Toronto 7
Ottawa 54 York 31
McMaster at Windsor, 7 p.m.
NOTES: On a 22-yard screen pass to Nathan Riva (LaSalle, Ont.), Faulds hit the 10,000-yard mark on the first play in the second quarter.
STANDINGS
|
|
GP
|
W
|
L
|
T
|
GF
|
GA
|
PTS
|
|
Queen's
|
7
|
7
|
0
|
0
|
259
|
124
|
14
|
|
Western
|
7
|
5
|
2
|
0
|
288
|
145
|
10
|
|
Ottawa
|
7
|
5
|
2
|
0
|
236
|
160
|
10
|
|
Laurier
|
7
|
5
|
2
|
0
|
185
|
123
|
10
|
|
McMaster
|
6
|
4
|
2
|
0
|
185
|
105
|
8
|
|
Guelph
|
7
|
3
|
4
|
0
|
281
|
221
|
6
|
|
Windsor
|
6
|
2
|
4
|
0
|
87
|
205
|
4
|
|
Waterloo
|
7
|
2
|
5
|
0
|
174
|
210
|
4
|
|
Toronto
|
7
|
1
|
6
|
0
|
98
|
232
|
2
|
|
York
|
7
|
0
|
7
|
0
|
94
|
362
|
0
|
