Photos from game 9 - the OUA Quarter-final won by the Queen's University Golden Gaels 27-6 over the visiting York University Lions.

With both Jack Gaudreau and Phillipe Champagne out on defense, the Gaels were in tough against one of the league's best running backs, York's Andre Durie, who ran for a total of 213 yards, down 39 percent from last week. However, York's one-dimension offense could only put 6 points on the board by way of field goals as the Gaels' D consistently snuffed out any Lion threats (although giving up 327 net yards) and also scored two safeties. Nathan Haskell, the player of the game, and Mitchell Smith both had interceptions off the anemic (79 yards) York passing attack. Nathan had 9 solo tackles and 4 assists. Also busy on the field were Craig Thompson (8 solo & 3 assists), Ian Hazlett (6&4), Ryan Bechmanis (6&3), Sean McKinnon (7&2), Matt Kirk (7&1) and Ross Corley (4&4).

On offense, the Gaels surprised fans with 26 running plays (169 yards, 9 first downs) to only 25 passing plays (139 yards for 7 first downs). With only 262 yards of net offense, I think I prefer the unbalanced pass-happy attack we've become used to in the last three years! Queen's offensive scoring came from a Bryan Crawford pass reception (Bryan had 77 rushing yards on the day) and a Tom Denison run (Tom had 56 yards rushing) and 11 points from Chris Napoli (3 field goals & 2 converts). Brad Smith made his long-awaited return to the lineup and had one spectacular 25-yard catch. Michael Navo also returned to action and had 2 catches for 19 yards and 3 rushes for 21 yards. Roger Levac averaged 51 yards on his 5 kickoffs.

The good news: the Gaels have no laurels to rest on for next week's game - the OUA Semi-final - against the Laurier Golden Hawks.

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