MONTREAL – Seven different players scored for the visiting Trent Excalibur en route to a 10-8 victory over McGill to open the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association season, Saturday.
It marked the first game in almost three years for McGill and new head coach
Nicolas Soubry, after two canceled campaigns due to the coronavirus pandemic. The game was played in sunny, 29 C conditions before 353 fans, camped out in the shade at Percival Molson Stadium. There was a large alumni turnout to celebrate the team's Homecoming Game.
Trent, which is based in Peterborough, Ont., is coming off a 6-0 regular season last year and opened their 2022 campaign on Sept. 7 with an 18-0 onslaught over Nipissing.
It took only 10 seconds after the opening faceoff before the visitors scored against McGill but the Redbirds settled down soon after and the teams were knotted at 3-3 after the first quarter. The second stanza also featured six goals, split evenly. In the third, the Excalibur finally took control outscoring McGill 5-0 but the Redbirds fought back and scored the only two goals in the final stanza.
"With no games for almost three years to measure our talent against, we didn't really know what kind of lineup we had," said Soubry. "But for a first game, against a strong team that will challenge for the first place in the East Division, we threw a lot of upper-cuts. We made some mistakes but I'm not too worried about it... We lost the game on little details today and that's something I gotta work with and we can fix that."
Midfielders
Dylan James of Little Britain, Ont., and
Rowan Birrell of North Vancouver, B.C., paced the McGill attack with two goals apiece. Singles were tallied by
Isaiah Cree of Akwesasne, N.Y.,
Alex Cowgill of Redwood City, Calif.,
Cameron McGinnis of Scarborough, Ont., and
Ethan Forgave of Edmonton.
Scoring twice each for the Excalibur was
Colton Armstrong,
Cole Hanrahan and
Brenden Lundy. Rounding out the visitors's offence were goals by
Nick Webb,
Holden Lowes,
Malcolm Warcholak and
Tyler Hendrycks.
Trent goaltender
Jackson Brown started and was credited with the win, allowing eight goals in 60 minutes of duty.
For McGill,
Steven Pelliccione, a fifth-year veteran from Woodbridge, Ont., started between the pipes and was saddled with the loss. He played 35 minutes and allowed eight goals on 12 shots.
Joseph Boehm, a senior from Waterloo, Ont., played the final 25 minutes and turned aside seven of nine volleys.
McGill is now 17-8 lifetime against the Excalibur. The Redbirds were hoping to wear their new jerseys but only the white road set had arrived in time. So Trent coach
Mark Farthing was asked a few weeks ago if his squad could switch to the dark uniforms for this meeting but he declined, which forced McGill to wear red practice jerseys for the game.
Lacrosse now has a new play clock, following in the footsteps of sports like basketball and football. This innovation has been introduced by the CUFLA this season to speed up the game. When a team gains possession of the ball in its own side of the field, it has 20 seconds to move across midfield. Also, a team has an 80-second time limit to shoot at the opposite net, otherwise it forfeits possession.
Trent (2-0) plays at Queen's (0-0) on Sept. 11 at 2 p.m., while McGill (0-1) will have a week off before hosting Nipissing (0-2) on Sept. 17 in a 7 p.m. faceoff at Molson Stadium.
ROSTER RAP: McGill's 2022 roster features 12 freshmen, six sophomores, eight juniors and 10 seniors... There are four co-captains, including fifth-year veterans
Stephen Pellicione and
Ethan Forgrave, along with seniors
Cameron McGinnis and
Christopher Parkinson of Falmouth, Mass.
FACES IN THE CROWD: Former McGill head coach
Tim Murdoch, who retired after the 2019 season, was on hand for the Homecoming game. Among the team's large alumni contingent in attendance included his son Max
Murdoch, plus Durham
Abric, Dikran
Arshagouni, Tanner
Baldin, Alexander
Beckes, Stephane
Bekhor, Anders
Bjella, Augustus
Bolton, Rhys
Burnell, Colton
Campbell, Leland
De Langley, Mike
Gallo, Louis-Charles
Genereux, Matt
Gorman, Francis
Grafton, Gardie
Herr, John
Hicks, Wayne
Hosking, Stu
Johnston, Drew
Laird, Emile
Lawless, Ian
Macleod, Jason
Martin, Kieran
McKay, Kevin
Miao, Roland
Moellenberg, Brendan
Mullen, Domenico
Murljacic, Zach
Nickle, Nolan
Prinzen, Marc,
Purdon, Julian
Smith-Voudouris, Jack
Stewart, Michael
Ting, Patrick
Turner, Jack
Turner, Jon
Uysal, William
Waesche, Cyrus
Wickersham and Jake
Winn.
BOXSCORE
CUFLA STANDINGS & STATS
2022 McGILL ROSTER
McGILL SCHEDULE & TICKETS
SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012 (Tel.)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca
