Football: Carabins Destroy Stingers 59-3

A Game to Forget for the Concordia Stingers

SportsSafia Ahmad — Published September 17, 2016

This resonated through the speakers several times at the Université de Montreal’s CEPSUM stadium on Friday night. Thirty-three times, to be exact.

The Université de Montréal Carabins brought their winning streak to three games after triumphing 59-3, solidifying their position at number one in the Réseau du Sport Étudiant du Québec division.

Things weren’t so rosy on the other side of the field as Concordia dropped to fourth in the RSEQ in a defeat that left the team frustrated.

“We didn’t come out and play,” said Stingers head coach Mickey Donovan. “They bullied us for all four quarters. Our guys, our coaches, our kids have to look ourselves in the mirror and that’s on all of us.”

“Our plan was to just do our one job,” said Stingers slotback Vincent Alessandrini, who played despite sustaining a minor injury during the week. “You know we all have one task but we just didn’t make it happen.”

Carabins running back Gabriel Parent scored his team’s first of eight touchdowns five minutes into the game. The Stingers believed the play was offside but the referee over-ruled the call. Concordia recorded its three points of the game at the end of the quarter off a field-goal from kicker Andrew Stevens at the 32 yard-line.

Despite going into half-time down 22-3, fifth-year defensive end Andrew Barlett said the ambiance in the locker room was good.

“We had a really high morale, that’s the big thing,” he explained. “Coming out of half-time, even a higher morale. Trenton Miller gave […] an incredible speech. No one was hanging their head. Everyone had a really strong outlook towards actually winning this game.”

The rest of the game was dominated by the home-team as they outmatched their opponent defensively and offensively. Carabins scored 15 points in the second quarter, followed by 17 and 20 points in the following two quarters, never letting Concordia establish any kind of momentum.

The Stingers defense allowed too much space for Carabins as wide receivers Louis-Mathieu Normandin and Guillaume Paquet combined for a total of 226 yards. Vincent Alessandrini completed 67 yards, the most amongst Concordia receivers.

While head coach Donovan doesn’t believe that penalties were an issue for his team, the Stingers lost a total of 132 yards on 17 penalties compared to Montreal’s nine penalties for a loss of 72 yards.

Quarterback Trenton Miller was intercepted twice and only completed 18 of his 35 passing attempts. Concordia was only able to move the ball up by 3.3 yards on average compared to Carabins 7.7 average yards gained per attempt.

“I just gotta pick myself up, look in the mirror and see what I can do better,” said Miller. “I think that’s what we all have to do at this point.”

The Stingers will be looking to forget this week’s loss and focus their attention on re-grouping before playing St.Francis Xavier university at home on Saturday, September 24 at 2 p.m.