MONTREAL -- Mathieu Soucy scored a pair of touchdowns and hauled in 100 yards on five receptions as McGill sunk visiting Sherbrooke 21-18 in a key RSEQ football confrontation before 1,628 fans at Percival Molson Stadium, Saturday.

It was McGill's first home contest in almost two years, dating back to Oct. 12, 2019, as a result of the COVID pandemic. The Redbirds led 1-0 after the opening quarter but the teams were tied at 11-11 at halftime. McGill outscored the Vert & Or 10-0 in the third but Sherbrooke closed the gap with a late touchdown in the final stanza.

Soucy, a 6-foot-1, 192-pound wide receiver missed a career-best reception high by eight yards.  The 25-year-old native of Quebec City put the Redbirds ahead 8-0 at 8:22 of the second quarter on a two-yard TD toss from quarterback Dimitrios Sinodinos. The fifth-year economics senior added a 39-yard TD reception at 6:50 of the third quarter, to give McGill an 18-11 lead.

Sinodinos completed 15 of 24 passes for 195 yards and two TDs with no interceptions. The engineering senior from Laval, Que., also rushed twice for 28 yards. He directed an offence that generated 15 first downs and 296 yards of net offence, compared to the Vert & Or, which had 16 and 293, respectively.

There appeared to be bad blood between the teams as the contest featured 23 penalties for a combined 213 yards of real estate.

"A win's a win and every one is tough to get in this RSEQ conference," said Ronald Hilaire, in his seventh season as head coach at McGill. "You have to savour your wins when you get them but we have to play better. I don't think that we played at our standard level. We played undisciplined football but our talent got us through the game.

"We like to hang our hats on being a disciplined team and obviously that was something that helped us when we played at Laval (last week) but something that hurt us this week, especially on the first play of the game when we recovered a fumble on their four-yard line but were called for being offside."

Sherbrooke quarterback Antoine Robichaud was 27-for-39 passing, registering 286 yards in the air, including a 53-yard TD pass to Kevin Morin, which tied the game at 8-8 with 4:48 remaining before halftime. Robichaud also rushed six times for 16 yards, including a touchdown on a one-yard keeper play with 54 seconds remaining in the final quarter. His two favourite targets both reached the 100-yard plateau. Morin collected 106 yards on five catches, while Charles Giroux had 101 on nine receptions.

The Sherbrooke pivot was sacked three times for a loss of 30 yards. McGill sophomore Dimitrios Papanikolaou and his younger sibling Costa Papanikolaou, both linebackers from Kirkland, Que., each registered their first career sacks. The other was shared by veterans Joshua Archibald and Nassib Hassouna, Jr.

"Both of our lines played very well," Hilaire noted. "We controlled the line of scrimmage and limited Sherbrooke to 37 rushing yards. Our offensive line is playing much better than in 2019. The veterans are playing well and we have much more depth than in the past and the awareness that if we keep a clean pocket (for the quarterback), we will be able to execute much better."

Both kickers rounded out the scoring. McGill rookie Antoine Couture scored nine points and made both of his field-goal attempts, while averaging 36.0 punting yards and 61.3 on kickoffs.  The 21-year-old psychology sophomore from Montreal made field-goals from distances of 28 and 24 yards and added a 46-yard punt single to open the scoring late in the second quarter. His first field-goal tied the game at 11-11 and his second proved to be the margin of victory. He finished a busy day with 12 punts for 432 yards and three kickoffs for 183 yards.

For Sherbrooke, place-kicker Louis Tardif tallied five points, including a 24-yard field-goal that narrowed the gap to 18-11 late in the third quarter. Punter Jacob Camire averaged an impressive 45.4 yards on nine punts, topped by a school record 79-yarder, beating William Dion's mark of 73 set on Sept. 4, 2011.

Former McGill defensive back Jean-Philippe Hudon (BSc '20) led the Sherbrooke defence with six total tackles, including one for loss. After graduating, the native of Lévis, Que., transferred to Sherbrooke for a master's degree. 

The game took three hours and 30 minutes to play, after a plethora of penalties and injuries. In all, 11 players needed medical attention, eight of them from the home side. There was a 45-minute delay in the third quarter when McGill sophomore receiver Dhandre Weekes suffered a lower body injury while trying to avoid a tackle. The medical staff took about 15 minutes to remove the 23-year-old Montrealer from the field and he was dispatched to a nearby hospital. There was an additional 30-minute wait as league regulations call for a precautionary stoppage in play until a second ambulance has been secured.

Sherbrooke (0-2), which has now lost eight straight road games dating back to 2018, hosts Laval (2-0) on Sept. 11. McGill, which evened their record at 1-1, has a bye week before hosting Concordia (0-1) at Molson Stadium on Friday, Sept.17 in the 52nd Shaughnessy Cup cross-town rivalry game that kicks off at 7 p.m. Tickets will not be sold at the door and must be purchased online, due to COVID restrictions.

REDBIRD RAP: McGill had to make do without their top two receivers, Darius Simmons and Pearce Dumay, both of whom were expected back in the lineup for the next game... Elijah Williams, a freshman running back from Dollard des Ormeaux, Que., led the McGill rushing attack with a game-high 64 yards on 16 carries... Anthony Leclerc, a 5-foot-11, 208-pound linebacker, led the defence with a game-high 6.5 tackles, including one for loss.  The 25-year-old native of Ancienne-Lorette, Que., is studying human resources management after graduating last spring with bachelor's degree in psychology.

BOXSCORE

RSEQ STATS & STANDINGS

SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012 (Tel.)
m.athletics.mcgill.ca (mobile website)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca