Laval 53, Concordia 2: Groundhog Day for Stingers Football

Shrine Bowl Sees Stingers Suffer Second Hard Loss in a Row

SportsLouis Pringle — Published September 30, 2018

“When you don’t show up against good teams, this is what happens,” said Collinson following another disappointing loss. “We have to go back to the basics. We have a bye week to prepare for [Université de] Montreal.”

Collinson couldn’t have been more right. His offence was dominated from the start by Laval’s defence.

Quarterback Adam Vance had an extremely difficult outing, completing only five out of 17 pass attempts. He also threw two interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown by Laval’s Émile Chênevert.

“A pick-six doesn’t help,” said Collinson. “We have to play better than this. We have to prepare better than this. This is not what we want to put out on the field. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror.”

The only bright spot on offence was running back Micah Sullivan. He managed to amass an impressive 94 yards on the ground. The highest total of any player on either team.

Sullivan could not finish off his solid performance as an injury ended his day early.

“We played horribly,” said fourth year offensive lineman Maurice Simba, who is still optimistic for the future of the squad. “The season is not over yet. It’s only week five.”

The Stingers couldn’t find the end zone for a second week in a row.

“If you ask me, yes [it is frustrating],” said Simba on not scoring for a second game in a row. “It’s not a good thing for us to start pointing fingers now. We have to play together. My main point as a veteran is to bring people together.”

The struggles were not only on the offensive side of the ball. The 54 points allowed to Laval speaks volumes of their performance.

“We have a good system. We have a good coordinator.” said fourth-year player Jérôme Bédard-Guillemette. “We just need to play until the end and just try to stop all the errors we are doing.”

The defensive line was able to apply pressure to Laval quarterback Hugo Richard more than once. They even reached him for a sack in the third quarter.

Both coach and players were in agreement that the bye week was welcomed at this point in the season.

The extra week of preparation will be crucial ahead of the matchup against Université de Montréal.

“We are fortunate to have this bye week,” said Simba. “We are gonna watch some film on Monday and practice a little bit this week. We are going to try to make sure that we are in top shape to play [Université de] Montréal in two weeks.”

Concordia will look to avenge their humiliating loss suffered at the hands of the Carabins when they travel to Cepsum.

“Of course!” said Bédard-Guillemette on looking forward to revenge against Université de Montréal.. “We are going to go there and take care of business.”

“Honestly, we all took that game [against Université de Montréal] personally,” said Simba. “If you don’t take that game personally, you’re not supposed to play football. We have to go there and impose our will. We have to give them a hard time.”

Concordia is now sitting in third place of the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec rankings with a 2-3 record. The top four teams in the RSEQ division qualify for the provincial playoffs.

Correction: In a former version of this article, Laval was described as the defending national champion. The Laval Rouge et Or are the defending RSEQ champion. The Link regrets this error.