Stingers take the Shaughnessy Cup

SportsJoseph Ste Marie — Published September 21, 2010

Friday night’s 34-29 Shaughnessy Cup win in front of 5,736 fans at Molson Stadium was the 11th consecutive victory for the Concordia Stingers over the McGill Redmen, dating back to 2002.

Even with a strong performance, the Redmen were not able to stop the Stingers’ unbelievable second-half comeback to win and improve their record to 2-1.

With less than three minutes left to go in the fourth quarter, Stingers cornerback Kris Robertson ran back a 62-yard punt return to score the winning touchdown.

“We lost the game for ourselves tonight. We played a great game [but] we made some silly mistakes,” said Redmen kicker Austin Anderson after the game.

The game started with McGill defensive back Jeffery Thompson recording a 102-yard kickoff return to open the scoring.

The Stingers’ offence couldn’t get anything going in the first quarter. The defence looked out of place, especially when Redman running back Justene Edwards received a wide-open 26-yard pass that eventually led to a field goal.

Stingers quarterback Terrance Morsink, who threw for 317 yards, found his groove in the game when he hit running back Eli Aramouni with a 43-yard pass. The drive ended with a field goal.

The Redmen didn’t let up in the second quarter. Despite receiving several penalties, Anderson was able to pack on two field goals for a total of four on the day.
The Stingers closed out the first half with a strong seven-play drive with Morsink throwing the ball to RB Edem Nyamadi for their first touchdown of the game, making it 18-10.

The second half started badly for Concordia again with Redmen DB Matthew Quigley intercepting a long pass by Morsink, which led to a 37-yard field goal by Anderson.

Concordia started its comeback with Robertson running a 60-yard kickoff return early in the fourth quarter and that led to a 33-yard touchdown pass from Morsink to Liam Mahoney to close the gap 24-20.

Capitalizing on costly Redmen penalties and a fumble in the first play of their drive, RB Michael Donnelly ran a 15-yard touchdown to tie the game at 27-27.
In the lead and with 54 seconds left, the Stingers gave up a safety to give McGill those two points that almost cost them the game.

The Redmen came close in the dying seconds as they scored a touchdown from the one-yard line, but it was called back for an illegal procedure penalty, which pushed them back five yards.

In the last play, CB Kyle Smith secured the Stingers’ victory by intercepting Redmen QB Ryne Bondy on a last second pass.

On what they needed to do to come back to win the game, Donnelly said they had to “just execute.”

“We were doing the plays but making mistakes,” Donnelly said.

Stingers coach Gerry McGrath was proud of his team’s comeback.

“We’ve got to shore up special teams and not give up big returns. We’ve got to continue to improve,” said McGrath when asked what strategy he would employ for the next game against Bishop’s on Saturday, Sept. 25 at Loyola.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 06, published September 21, 2010.