MONTREAL -- Kicker
Findlay Brown accounted for half of McGill's scoring in a key 20-13 Homecoming football game victory over Sherbrooke at Percival Molson Stadium, Saturday.
McGill, which avenged a 16-14 last-minute loss at Sherbrooke earlier this season, improved to 9-18 lifetime versus the Vert & Or, including a 6-9 mark at home.
A constant light rain affected both team's passing ability in a game that was dominated by defence. McGill had a 19-7 edge in first downs and a 268-122 margin in net yards.
Despite the damp conditions, Brown, a 5-foot-11, 188-pounder from Winnipeg, registered a perfect 3-for-3 performance on field-goals, connecting from distances of 36, 44 and 27 yards, respectively. With the score tied at 10-10 after three quarters, Brown nailed two field-goals in the last five minutes to assure the victory. He averaged 37.6 yards on 10 punts in addition to averaging 55.5 yards on four kickoffs.
He also converted McGill's only touchdown, a five-yard toss from quarterback
Dimitrios Sinodinos to wide receiver
Mathieu Soucy that put the home side ahead 7-0 before the game was seven minutes old.
"Brown is looking like a fourth-year player should, he's doing exactly what we expected," said McGill head coach
Ronald Hilaire of the 21-year-old management senior who is 12-for-16 in place-kicking, 7-for-7 on his conversion attempts and averaging 39.2 yards per punt.
"He finally spent the summer in Montreal, worked out hard, and improved his punting vastly. Aside from a hiccup in the early season game against the Carabins, his kicking game has been very solid and we're happy with his consist performance."
McGill led 7-0 after the opening quarter and 10-3 at halftime but the Vert & Or knotted the score at 10-10 just 76 seconds into the third quarter when running back
Sebastien Beland rushed for a six-yard major. Brown then followed with back-to-back field goals to provide a more comfortable cushion.
Sherbrooke narrowed the gap to seven in the final minute when place-kicker
Louis Tardif added a 45-yard field-goal. Tardif also made a 24-yarder late in the first half and converted Beland's TD run. Trapped deep with poor field position, the Vert & Or elected to concede a pair of safety touches early in the fourth quarter..
Sinodinos, an electrical engineering junior from Laval, Que., who was sacked five times, completed 27 of 42 pass attempts for 235 yards, one TD and no interceptions. His favourite target was
Pearce Dumay, who hauled in eight balls for 76 yards and finished with a game-high 111 all-purpose yards, including 18 on kickoff returns and 17 on punt returns.
Zack Cloutier started at quarterback for Sherbrooke but was sacked by
Josh Archibald during their second offensive series and left the game. Cloutier, who was 2-for-3 passing for 11 yards, was replaced by
Antoine Robichaud, who was 6-for-13 for 31 yards.
Phillip Blackburn came on late in the fourth quarter and failed to complete a pass in three attempts.
The McGill front seven combined for four sacks on the three pivots, including a pair from defensive lineman
Andrew Seinet-Spaulding,
"After losing the first meeting in a heart-breaking fashion to Sherbrooke, we definitely wanted to show up today and better represent who we are as a team," noted Hilaire. "We started strong, with an early touchdown but we kind of stalled offensively. We moved the ball but we didn't finish when we needed to. Sherbrooke has a good young combative team that really challenged us. I wasn't quite as happy at how we started the second half... we gotta be better at the little things but all in all, it was a good result. We completed one of our objectives, which was to win the head-to-head series with Sherbrooke. Now we want to take that and continue to improve as we get to playoffs."
With three games left to play, the victory almost assures McGill (2-3) of a playoff berth in the five-team RSEQ conference as they now hold the tie-breaker over Sherbrooke (1-4) and have a +26 point-differential from their first confrontation with Concordia (1-4) with one meeting left between the cross-town rivals.
Next week, McGill (2-3) plays at division-leading Montreal (5-0) on Friday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. in a contest that will be televised nationally on the TVA Sports network. Sherbrooke (1-4) has a bye and returns to action on Oct. 12 with a home game against the Carabins.
McGILL MURMURS: Members of the 1969 Yates Cup league championship team -- the first McGill squad to play in the Vanier Cup national championship game -- were on hand to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their remarkable season... Coached by
Tom Mooney, the group became known as the "Mooney Men"... The 1969 captains (
Cliff Moore,
Bobby Burke,
George Wall) were on hand to perform the ceremonial kickoff and after the game, they unveiled two new football scholarships that they had fundraised for, in a post-game ceremony. The aforementioned
Dimitrios Sinodinos, who maintains a perfect 4.0 grade-point average, received the Dr. Ken Aiken Memorial Award, while defensive back
Tristan Fleury, a kinesiology junior from Deux Montagnes, Que., merited the Mooney Men Award. Two other bursaries will be presented at the team's year-end awards banquet in March... The 1969 group is a special one in school history, one that featured 15 players who went on to earn a medical degree. The team featured three All-Canadians -- DB
Chris Rumball, RB
Dave Fleiszer and OL
Jay Harris -- and posted an 8-2 record overall, including a 6-1 regular season mark atop the old OQAA standings. They captured the Shaughnessy Cup rivalry game, the Yates Cup league title and the Atlantic Bowl national semifinal before falling 24-15 at Manitoba in the Vanier Cup game.
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2019 RSEQ UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL STANDINGS
