Football: Miller Time

Bishop’s Gaiters Get Annihilated at The Hands of Concordia Stingers

SportsJulian McKenzie — Published October 18, 2015

No other team in the Réseau de Sport Étudiant du Québec conference had scored more than 53 points in a game this season before Saturday, but the game result still left Concordia Stingers head coach Mickey Donovan wanting more.

“I thought we could’ve put up more points,” said Donovan. “We left too many on the field. We did a good job, but not good enough I think.

“Defensively is where we actually put a full game together and completed a shutout.”

Stingers quarterback Trenton Miller had a field day against the Gaiters’ defence. The quarterback threw five touchdowns for 388 yards, and had 93 yards rushing on nine rushing attempts.

Despite the impressive stats, Miller also wasn’t too impressed with his performance.

“I thought it was the best worst game I’ve ever played,” Miller said. “There was a lot of stuff I have to clean up, personally, but I thought our offensive line and our receivers played their butts off.”

Sure enough, Miller’s receivers stood out on this day. Wide receiver Yanic Lessard caught eight passes for 95 yards and also had three touchdowns in the victory. Not to be outdone, fellow receiver Daniel Skube also caught nine passes for 106 yards.

Finally, receiver James Tyrrell made his presence felt on special teams as he returned eight punts for a total of 215 yards, establishing a conference record for most punt return yards in a game. One of his returns was for a touchdown; a 55-yard score that occurred in the third quarter.

“The playoffs are in our hands. If we win, we’re in [the playoffs], and we will.” — Trenton Miller

“Our return teams are starting to step up,” said Donovan.

As for Bishop’s, the Gaiters fell to a record of 1-5 on the season, eliminating any hopes they had of making the post-season. Receiver Zach Graveson said mental mistakes cost his team a victory.

“There’s no excuse,” said Graveson. “We can’t have that excuse of being a young team. We’re in the league, we’re in [Canadian Interuniversity Sport] so we should perform at the CIS level.

“As a team we didn’t show up today. Nobody had a good game. Nobody had a perfect game. We did some good stuff but at the end it didn’t come out in our favour.”

At the end of the first quarter, Concordia was already up 21-0. The Stingers began with a 24-yard touchdown run from running back Jean-Guy Rimpel before Miller threw the first of his five touchdown passes to Lessard.

The final touchdown of the quarter came from the defence as defensive back Connor O’Brien returned an interception for a touchdown with under three minutes left to play in the opening quarter.

Miller threw two more touchdowns in the second quarter, one to Lessard, and a 69-yard bomb to Justin Julien. Following a safety taken by Bishop’s punter, the Stingers had a 37-0 lead at halftime.

The Gaiters had no answer for the Maroon and Gold in the first half and they still couldn’t find anymore once the second half began. In addition to Tyrrell’s return touchdown, Miller threw two more touchdowns in the second half. A field goal from Keegan Treloar in the final quarter was the final blow for the Stingers, who also scored 63 points in a game last season versus the St. Mary’s Huskies.

Concordia is now looking ahead to their matchup against the McGill Redmen on Saturday, Oct. 24 in the Shaughnessy Cup at Percival Memorial Molson Stadium, where the stakes are high for the Maroon and Gold.