MONTREAL -- Trenton Miller passed for 375 yards and three touchdowns as Concordia took advantage of a dozen McGill turnovers to defeat the Redmen 30-16 and capture the 48th Shaughnessy Cup game before a raucous matinee crowd of 3,780 at Percival Molson Stadium, Friday.

The event kicked off the RSEQ conference's regular campaign and the 136th season of football on the McGill campus. It marked the largest home crowd for a McGill game since Sept. 19, 2008, when 6,218 were on hand to see Bishop's defeat the Redmen 45-21.

It was a close-knit affair until the final 10 minutes. McGill led 7-0 after the opening stanza on a 24-yard TD reception by freshman Joel Soucy from quarterback Nicolas English to put McGill ahead 7-0 midway through the first quarter. It capped a six-play, 90-yard scoring drive. The Stingers rallied to take a 13-7 lead into the intermission and held a 16-14 advantage heading into the final quarter.

With the teams knotted at 16-16, Miller found Daniel Skube in the endzone for a nine-yard TD toss at 4:40. Less than five minutes later, Miller connected with Vincent Alessandrini on a 25-yard bomb to round out the scoring. Alessandrini led all receivers with nine catches for 103 yards. Yanic Lessard tallied the other Concordia major, hauling in an eight-yard TD toss to give the Stingers an 8-6 lead at 10:01 of the second quarter.

Miller, a second-year pivot from Buffalo, N.Y., completed 33 of 46 attempts and was picked off twice.

McGill racked up 407 yards of offence, compared to 397 by the Stingers, who held a slim 25-23 edge in first downs. A promising start to the campaign for the Redmen was snuffed out time and time again as the home side threw five interceptions, lost the ball three times on fumbles and turned it over on downs four times. Concordia, by contrast, only committed three turnovers.

"When you give up 12 turnovers and only lose by 14 points, it was a very winable game," said McGill head coach Ronald Hilaire. "But when you play a good team like Concordia and give the ball up that many times, you're not giving yourself a chance to win. It was a disappointing result but there were a lot of positives to take from this. We moved the ball on offence although were unable to punch it in from inside the red zone, where we were 0-for-2 and Concordia was 4-for-5. Our defence played very well. One of our weaknesses last year was an inability to stop the run, especially against Concordia. But in this game, we held that team -- with a big offensive line -- to only 42 yards rushing."

English, a sophomore from St. Constant, Que., started at quarterback for McGill. The southpaw completed 12 of 21 attempts for 183 yards, one TD and three interceptions before being shaken up late in the second quarter. He was replaced at halftime by freshman Frederic Paquette-Perrault, who was 12-for-22 passing for 136 yards, with one TD and a pair of picks.

The two McGill pivots found eight different receivers, including Soucy, a 20-year-old rookie from Montreal, who caught five balls for 57 yards.

Louis Brouillette, a mechanical engineering senior from Sherbrooke, Que., scored the other McGill major. The co-captain and fifth-year veteran snared a 36-yard toss from Paquette-Perrault to put the Redmen ahead 14-13 just two minutes into the third quarter. He also appeared to make a circus catch in the endzone late in the game but rolled over and the ball touched the ground. The play was ruled an incomplete pass.

Place-kicker Patrick Mills rounded out the Concordia scoring with 13 points, going 2-for-3 in field-goals, to go along with three conversions and a rouge on a missed 24-yard FG attempt.

Safety Herman Akins led the Concordia defence with eight total tackles, while defensive back William Jouan-Ladouceur and rookie linebacker Samuel Brodrigue each collected a pair of interceptions and cornerback Michael Asibuo also picked one off. Brodrigue also had five tackles, a knockdown and a fumble recovery.

Leading the way for McGill was Maxime Rouyer, a second-year linebacker with a game-high nine tackles. Teammate Pier-Olivier Grenier-Gachet, a freshman from Jonquiere, Que., registered five tackles, one interception and collected a game-high 125 all-purpose yards, including 106 on four kickoff returns. Also making an interception was McGill rookie Vincent Dethier of Boisbriand, Que., whose early first-quarter pick in the endzone snuffed out a Concordia scoring drive.

The Stingers had a 2-1 edge in quarterback sacks, with the lone McGill sack going to Ousmane Guindo, a junior defensive lineman from Laval, Que., who was credited with four tackles.

Next week, Concordia (1-0) will host Laval, the Vanier Cup finalists, on Sept. 10 in a 3 pm start on the TVA Sports network. McGill (0-1) travels to Sherbrooke the same day with a 4 p.m. kickoff.

REDMEN RAP: Presenting the Shaughnessy Cup after the game was Denis Champagne, one of the "Crazy Dogs" on the offensive line of McGill's 1987 Vanier Cup national championship team... Michael Soles, his 1987 teammate who has been battling ALS for the past decade, used Facebook Messager to contact the pressbox during the season opener, looking for scoring updates. Soles as the 1987 Vanier Cup MVP, rushing for 203 yards and two TDs. He went onto a lengthy CFL career with the Edmonton Eskimos and Montreal Alouettes...This was the third straight Shaughnessy Cup victory for Concordia, which owns a 24-18 record against McGill in the annual cross-town rivalry game that was initiated in 1969 and named after the legendary Frank Shaughnessy, who coached at both campuses and is in the Sports Hall of Fame at both institutions. McGill is 23-24-1 in Cup play, including a 5-0-1 record against Loyola, which merged with Sir George Williams University in 1975 to form Concordia.

SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
McGill Sports Info Office
(514) 398-7012