LONDON, Ont. - Fourth-year quarterback Chris Merchant tallied 324 passing yards to help lead the Western football team to a 63-14 blowout victory over the Guelph Gryphons to capture their second-straight Yates Cup Championship.

Merchant dominated the Gryphons' defence from start to finish, rushing for three touchdowns and adding a passing touchdown to give him a total of four on the day. Fourth-year running back Cedric Joseph also had a field day against Guelph, rushing for 122 yards and three touchdowns.

On the other side of the ball, it was Fraser Sopik who led the way for the Western defence, totaling a team-high 8.5 tackles.

Guelph was led by running back Jean-Paul Cimankinda, who spearheaded the Gryphons' offence with 148 rushing yards and earned one touchdown on the day.

"It's awesome to be apart of such a dynasty," said Sopik. "But this is really just the first goal of many. Winning the Yates Cup is a great feeling, but honestly, it's less exciting because we have bigger goals. It's nice to cross it off, but we're already focused on the next game. That's just how it is for this team."

"This maybe isn't the end-goal for the season, but it was the end-goal for this week," said Mustangs head coach Greg Marshall. "We've been saying all season that we want to take things one week at a time, so we prepared as if this was the last week of the season. We prepared constantly for today; we were working late every single night and it was a great effort by both our players and coaches to come out with a big win. We were prepared and you could see the results out there today."

Western's first drive of the game looked promising behind Merchant's passing game but was broken up by a fumble just short of the goal line for the first turnover of the day. But after an incredible effort by the Western defence to get the ball back on the 45-yard line, Joseph made sure to get the purple and white on the board, rushing through Guelph's line to give the Mustangs the 7-0 lead.

The Western defence continued to dominate Guelph to close out the first quarter as Mackenzie Ferguson picked off the Gryphons' Theo Landers and returned it for the touchdown on the ensuing drive to extend the Mustang lead to 14-0 with the 35-yard pick-six.

Following a lopsided first quarter, the Mustangs continued to strike early in the second, as Merchant once again made something out of nothing, turning a broken play into his first rushing touchdown and extending the Western lead to 21-0.

Following yet another dominant defensive series to force Guelph into their second safety in a row, Western's Harry McMaster made an incredible catch put the Mustangs into prime scoring position. Joseph took full advantage of Western's red zone position, running the ball in with ease to extend the lead to 32-0.

Western would add one more before the halftime buzzer, as Merchant connected with Griffin Campbell for his first touchdown of his career to push their lead to 39-0 late in the half. Guelph eventually found their way into the end zone with a four-yard pass with no time remaining in the half to head into halftime facing a 39-7 deficit.

Guelph seemed to take their late first-half touchdown and use it as momentum into the second, finding their way back on the scoreboard just minutes into the third quarter with a rushing touchdown to trim Western's lead to 39-14.

However, Merchant soon countered with his second rushing touchdown of the day to keep Western's lead out of reach with a 46-14 margin. Merchant ran in yet another in the quarter, matching his total rushing touchdowns for the entire regular season with three and extending the lead to 53-14 to end the fourth quarter.

After building up a dominant lead, the fourth quarter was much of the same for the purple and white on their way to their second-straight Yates Cup Championship, as Joseph punched in one final touchdown on route to the eventual 63-14 victory.

"It obviously feels good to win a championship game because anything can happen in football," said Merchant. "We all had some pre-game nerves knowing that we were playing against a good team, so credit to them. They have some good players and they hit hard, but we have amazing coaches and players that are ready to make big plays, so we felt good about our chances today. Our team is coming together at the right time of the year, so we're really excited moving forward."

"The thing about playing teams out of conference at this point in the playoffs is that, in a way, you have no idea what to expect," said Sopik. "They tend to pass it more out West, but we never really know how they're going to game plan for us, but, no matter what, we feel comfortable heading into next week. The trophy case is going to have to get a little bigger though, because we're putting two more in it."

With the win, the Mustangs retain their Yates Cup Championship and will move on to compete in the Mitchell Bowl against the Saskatchewan Huskies next Saturday in TD Stadium. The game is scheduled to kick off at 4:00 P.M. EST and fans can catch all the action live on Sportsnet.