Football (M) - News

Football (6-2 OUA, 0-1 Play-offs, 7-3 overall)

In what can be described as a frightening performance the University of Ottawa Gee- Gees 2009 football season came to an abrupt end on Saturday afternoon.

As the little ones were looking to fill up their bags with goodies on Halloween night, the Gee-Gees were cleaning out their lockers after the McMaster Marauders knocked them out of the OUA play-offs with a convincing 27-15 quarter-final road win at Landsdowne Park.

The reason why McMaster won this game was simple. The Marauders executed when they had to and the Gee-Gees didn’t.

Penalties proved to be costly once again for uOttawa as they were flagged 12 times for 95 yards compared to Mac who had just four red flags for 21 yards.

“Penalties can cost you a game but that’s not what beat us today,” said Denis Piche, Gee-Gees head coach.

“We played a really good team today. Quite simply we didn’t play well enough to beat Mac. We didn’t make key plays when we had to. We didn’t start well and we never seemed to recover. We may have even missed a little desperation in our game which ultimately may have cost us this game.”

At the end of the day uOttawa finished with 555 yards in total offense compared to Mac’s 443 but what counts is the final score.

The Gee-Gees were superior in the air with 349 passing yards with the Marauders picking up 173.

On the ground McMaster got the nod with 270 yards on 38 carries while the Gee-Gees had 206 on 31 attempts.

Total time of possession was in Ottawa’s favour with 31.16 with McMaster having the ball for 28.32 but the score at the end of the game is the only statistic that counts.

“I can’t really explain what happened today,” said Gee-Gees quarterback, Brad Sinopoli.

“Maybe we’re just young and this was the first time for a lot of the guys in the play-offs. I don’t think that’s the case because a lot of guys were poised.”

Sinopoli did his best to get his team to the OUA semi-finals as he finished the afternoon completing 31 of 55 passes for 349 yards and one touchdown.

His counterpart with Mac Kyle Quinlan was 10 for 22 and 173 yards. Quinlan threw for two touchdowns.

uOttawa field goal kicker Matthew Falvo was responsible for all of his team’s points in the first half with kicks of 37, and a pair of 22 yarders.

Mac RB Joseph Nemet scored the Marauders first TD on a 9 yard run followed by an 11 yard pass from Quinlan to Matthew Peressini giving McMaster a 14-9 lead as the teams headed to the dressing room.     

At 10:45 of the fourth quarter uOttawa went ahead 15-14 on a 10 yard pass to Matthew Bolduc capping off a 67 yard scoring drive.

The Gee-Gees went for a two point conversion but failed..

This is where the game turned in McMaster’s favour.

On their next set of downs the Marauders marched the entire length of the field before Nemet picked up his second rushing touchdown of the afternoon with a 4 yard run putting McMaster up 20-15.

Mac’s attempt at a two pointer was foiled as well giving the Gee-Gees some hope at a comeback with more than eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.

The final nail in Ottawa’s Halloween coffin was driven deep in to their hearts when Quinlan hooked up with Jordan Kozina for a 65 yard touchdown pass with 4:05 minutes remaining in the game to put the Marauders ahead for good 27-15.

“We had some good moments in the game but not enough,” said Gee-Gees running back Jordan Wilson-Ross.   

“It’s tough to see the last year guys go out this way but we’re a young team I guarantee we’ll bounce back next year.”

McMaster moves on to play the Queen Gaels next week-end in one QUA semi-final contest while Western and Laurier will meet in the other.