KINGSTON, Ont. (Oct. 15, 2022) - Queen's Football's defence had another strong performance, holding the McMaster Marauders to 10 points and helping Queen's win their fourth game in a row, 14-10 over McMaster Saturday afternoon at Richardson Stadium.
The Marauders led Queen's 10-5 in the third quarter when a couple of big plays on defence helped swing the momentum in Queen's favour.
Liam Sutherland (Ottawa, Ont.) jumped a route and intercepted McMaster quarterback Andreas Dueck midway through the quarter, returning it 28 yards to swing the field position battle. On McMaster's next offensive series,
Keegan Vanek (London, Ont.) intercepted Dueck and returned the ball 33 yards to the Marauders' 32-yard line, which led to a Queen's touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
After McMaster surrendered a safety, the Marauders regained the ball late in the fourth quarter when another big play by Sutherland, a sack for an 11-yard loss, helped Queen's maintain the lead and secure the four-point win.
"
Liam Sutherland played amazing. That was the best game I've seen him play, he was all over the place," said Head Coach
Steve Snyder. "It's huge, when we can turn the ball over like that and give our offence a short field, and get some momentum and positive energy back, it's a big part of university football."
"It feels great, I can't say much more than that," said Sutherland of the defence coming up with big plays in the game. "It gets everyone hyped. That's the energy we need, especially in a close game like this, we need high energy."
Queen's held Dueck to 256 yards passing and two interceptions, and sacked him four times in the win.
Silas Hubert (Hastings, Ont.),
Van Wishart (Courtice, Ont.), and
Wells Karabin (King City, Ont.) also recorded sacks for Queen's.
Wishart also led Queen's in tackles with seven, alongside linebacker
Sterling Seunarine (Hamilton, Ont.).
"It's the same thing for us every game. Reset mentality, it's a new play every play, said Vanek, who finished the game with two tackles along with his interception. "It was a long game, hard fought game both ways, and I think defence played a big game but there's always some things to improve on."
"It gives us another spark of life and that goes for everybody," Vanek added about the big plays. "It could have been anybody on defence, it could have been a big play on offence, it helps us gain faith in ourselves get something moving."
"The second half the defence was outstanding," Snyder continued. "We really leaned on them. We struggled to sustain some drives offensively but it was a good win."
Alex Vreekan (Kingston, Ont.) finished with 100 yards passing and a one-yard touchdown run.
Yann Longa (Montreal, Que.) led Queen's in rushing with 10 carrries for 56 yards.
With the win, Queen's improved their record to 6-1 and remain in second place in the OUA standings. McMaster fell to 2-5 with the loss.
Queen's will close out their regular season schedule next weekend, Saturday, Oct. 22 against the Laurier Golden Hawks in Waterloo, Ont.
