Photos from game 8, Queen's vs. Waterloo Warriors at the new University of Waterloo Field, Waterloo, ON on October 18, 2008.

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PREVIEW

In the quest for a perfect season, the Gaels visit the new Waterloo Stadium to face the 2-5 Waterloo Warriors. The Warriors are coming off an upset 30-29 win over Windsor after falling behind 23-1 at the half, so figure to be on a bit of a high. They boast an offense that has passed for 2017 yards, but have only rushed for 634 yards.

Key players to watch are QB Evan Martin who has completed 55.7% of his passes for 1524 yards but only 5 TD's versus 8 interceptions. Joshua Svec is the #2 ranked receiver in the country with 827 yards, just behind Scott Valberg, although he has only scored 3 TD's. You have to go all the way down to #21 to find Waterloo's top rusher, Marvin Mccooty who has 364 yards and 4 rushing TD's. Waterloo has no one in the top 40 in scoring, and with 125 points scored all year as a team, do not seem to present much of an offensive threat, despite their passing yards which must all be coming outside the red zone. On the other hand, their 247 points against are surpassed by only McGill's 301 and York's 421.

People still talk about the debacle in the rain several years ago when a heavily favoured Queen's team lost at Waterloo, but don't expect a repeat upset; instead look for a Queen's blowout as they prepare to host one of the OUA semi-finals on November 1 against a team still to be determined!

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QUEEN’S 38, WATERLOO 22

It wasn’t pretty, and it didn’t achieve the number one objective of winning and escaping any injuries, but Queen’s 38-22 win over the Waterloo Warriors achieved a goal probably not contemplated except by eternal optimists: completing an undefeated regular season with an 8-0 record. In fact it was Coach Pat Sheahan’s first 8-0 season after two 7-1 seasons in his head coaching career.

The game started with a downer as Mike Giffin went down with what looked like a knee injury after gaining 16 yards on the first play of the game, never to return to the field. Speculation on the severity of the injury was the number one topic of conversation for the remainder of the game, along with the question: what the *&%$ is going on, as the Warriors were able to move the ball on the Gaels if not at will, certainly more proficiently than expected. Waterloo had net offense of 418 yards and actually outdid the Gaels in time of possession, 30:34 to 29:26.

Although it seemed as tho’ Queen’s wasn’t executing very crisply, Danny Brannagan racked up 342 yards completing 23 of 39 attempts, and passing for 3 touchdowns, 2 to Scott Valberg and one to Devan Sheahan. Valberg had a total of 142 yards on 9 receptions and for the season, topped 1,000 yards with a total of 1,013. Sheahan had 4 catches for 83 yards.

With Giffin out of the game, Marty Gordon and Jimmy Therrien took up the slack and gained 103 and 74 yards respectively, each running in a TD. Net offense for the Gaels totaled 486 yards.

On the defensive side of the ball, Osie Ukwuoma had 2 sacks to extend his season total to 9.5, while Affan Dar and Thaine Carter also recorded sacks. Ukwuoma and Mike Bowey both had fumble recoveries. David Rooney led the Gaels with 7.5 tackles, while Ukwuoma and Carter had 4.5 tackles each.

On special teams, Jimmy Therrien had 9 punt and kick returns for 185 yards, including a 63 yard kick return. Dan Village was good on one of two field goal attempts and was good on 5 converts for a total of 8 points.

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With the regular season completed, a number of Gaels were ranked at or near the top of the stats (with otherc onferences still to complete their season next weekend).

Queen’s had the top scoring offense with 374 points (just over Western’s 363). The 450 net offense yards ranked #6. The defense allowed 116 points, good for a #5 ranking. The 323 yards allowed per game ranked #7 in the country.

Dan Village leaped to the top of the scoring charts with 90 points on 14 field goals, 45 converts, and 3 singles. Mike Giffin having sat out the Waterloo game ended up with 14 TD’s and 84 points, good for the #2ranking. Scott Valberg ranked #9 with 66 points on his 11 touchdowns.

Danny Brannagan was 2nd to Western’s Michael Faulds with 2407 yards, but led the country in passing TD’s with 24.

Mike Giffin fell behind Jamal Lee who still had a game in hand, and ranked #2 in rushing with 1061 yards, but did have the lead in rushing TD’s with 12.

Scott Valberg had 1013 in receiving yards and 11 receiving TD’s, and led the nation in both categories.

Osie Ukwuoma broke the tie with Dee Sterling and ended the year with 9.5 sacks. Dee tied for #2 with 7.5 sacks.

Jimmy Allin was #1 in punt return average with 15.6 yards.

Dan Village was #7 in punting average with 40.3 yards per punt and was #4 in percentage of punts inside the 20-yard line with 34.8%.

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With the win, the Golden Gaels have two weeks to rest and recover until the OUA semi-final game on November 1 at Richardson Stadium.


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All photos are Copyright (c) Jeff Chan 2000-2008, but may be used for personal non-commercial use, and by Queen's University, the CIS and its member conferences, and by the Vanier Cup, so long as photo credits are shown or the photos are otherwise attributed to Jeff Chan. All other rights are reserved.