The Stingers’ football team comes out on top in the Homecoming game to get their first win of the season.
In Concordia’s Saturday Homecoming game, the Stingers honoured the alumni by getting a dominant 42-16 win against the McGill Redbirds at the Concordia Stadium.
The Redbirds were first to score two field goals. An early 34-yard goal and a 37-yard field goal later in the first quarter — by kicker Antoine Couture — earned the team a 6-0 lead.
After a significant drive led by Stingers’ quarterback Olivier Roy, backup quarterback Adrien Guay — who is mostly utilized for short-yardage plays — pierced through McGill’s defensive line to score the tying touchdown. Stingers’ kicker Ali El Sehemawi got the extra point, ending the first quarter with a 7-6 lead over the Redbirds.
At Concordia’s three-yard line, a touchdown was almost certain for McGill at the beginning of the second quarter, but the Stingers’ defence stood tall and forced their rival to kick a field goal instead.
The Redbirds weren’t done yet, scoring a touchdown on their next drive, resulting in their last points of the game.
The Stingers’ defence once again came up big, this time with halfback Derek Acheampong intercepting a pass in Concordia’s end zone, which was a turning point for the Stingers in the game.
They followed up with a strong 90-yard drive, during which wide receiver Jeremy Murphy had two receptions for 57 yards. Roy ended it with a nine-yard rush for a touchdown. With a successful kick attempt, this put the Stingers only two points behind the Redbirds at halftime.
“I think we played a good 30 minutes, the second half,” Stingers’ head coach Brad Collinson said. “The first half we were a bit sloppy. But I think coming off the bye that’s what happened. We got to clean that up and hopefully the next game we play a full 60.”
In the third quarter, after a drive led by Roy and running back Dwanté Morgan, Guay came out to replace Roy at McGill’s one-yard line and got the touchdown. With El Sehemawi’s extra point, Concordia was up 21-16.
Guay credited his teammates, saying everyone on the field did their job and made his job of scoring near the endzone “very easy.”
Morgan later scored a touchdown on the Stingers’ first drive of the fourth quarter, earning them a bigger lead.
The Stingers had everything going well for them. They got two more touchdowns, another scored by Roy and the last one by runningback Franck Tchembe, which cemented the 42-16 victory.
“On our offensive line we imposed our will on them and we ran the ball very well,” Collinson said. “I think that was the deciding factor in the game.”
Concordia’s defence continued its solid play and made one more end zone interception, this time by cornerback Ahmadou Boubacar.
Collinson pointed out that the defence cleaned up their game in the second half.
“Kudos to them,” he said. “They relaxed, they calmed down, they played the way they were supposed to play.”
Safety Dawson Pierre said that a big part of the defence’s success was communication.
“We started talking to each other,” he said. “We stayed composed, and we just did what we had to do, and then we made plays and that’s what it was.”
Roy ended the game with 25 completed passes for 352 yards, while Murphy had eight receptions totalling 149 yards, and Morgan had nine rushes for 111 yards.
Murphy said that their game plan worked well, and getting the win felt good as it relieved a lot of pressure.
“We were more physical than them and we wanted it more,” he added.
Pierre also said it felt good to see all the work they put in so far this season and during training camp paying off.
The Stingers will be looking to get another win next week in Quebec City where they will face the Rouge et Or at Laval University.