London, ON – The Mustangs opened the 2019 home schedule with a 40-23 win over Queen's in front of a packed crowd at TD Stadium.
"It was awesome, when I saw the packed stands at the start of the game. To finally get an O-Week game like that was really cool." said Chris Merchant, Mustangs Quarterback. "We really did appreciate the support from the fans and they did a great job."
Western made an immediate impact for the packed crowd in attendance after Marc Liegghio's 67-yard kickoff went into the Queen's end zone, the receiver bobbled it and the Mustangs pounced on him for the rouge point.
The Mustangs would strike with the first major of the game when Chris Merchant connected with Trey Humes for an 11-yard catch to put Western up 11-3 with just over 5 minutes left in the 1
st quarter.
"Queen's was a good defence, basically returning all their starters from last year." said Merchant "I think we did a good job, still need to clean a lot of stuff up in all aspects especially offence, we're going to do that and hopefully be ready with a short week."
Before the end of the 1
st quarter Bleska Kambamba picked off Queen's QB James Keenan and took the ball back 20 yards for the TD to put the Mustangs up 20-3.
"I was just reading the quarterbacks eyes; he threw it and I just kind of attacked." said Kambamba. "Luckily I made a killer play out of it and helped us with momentum and we need to have more of that."
After Queen's ran their first score of the game in to take the score to 20-10, Chris Merchant would connect with Malik Besseghieur for a 48 yard catch to take a 27-10 lead at half time.
Before the end of the half the Mustangs would make it 34-10 when Chris Merchant kept the ball himself and ran it in for a short TD.
"We're always going to ground and pound the ball if we can, we have a young offensive line, especially interior but they're getting better every week" said Merchant.
Queens added a TD late in the 3
rd quarter to cut the score to 37-17 but a Marc Liegghio field goal in the early part of the 4
th quarter put the game out of reach.
"I think we need to play better than that. Offensively, defensively and special teams. If we want to beat the best teams in our conference." said Mustangs Head Coach Greg Marshall "We've got a young team, we struggled to put 3 solid plays together at some points tonight and we need to be better"
Mustangs Stats Leaders
Chris Merchant - 23 for 33 with 355 yards and 2 TD in the air and 1 rushing TD
Trey Humes - 9 rushes for for 58 yards
Brett Ellerman - 7 receptions for 101 yards in the game
Marc Liegghio - 3 for 3 in field goals, his longest being a 45 yard kick.
Next Game
Next game is this Saturday on the road to McMaster to take on the Marauders. Game time is 1:00pm, the game can seen on OUA.tv.
