Spears fall to Mustangs in opener
Opening night didn’t go anywhere near the way the Niagara Spears envisioned or hoped.
The Spears dropped a 28-0 decision to the London Junior Mustangs in Ontario Summer Football League under-18 action Saturday night at Notre Dame.
“We let down,” Spears head coach Brian Duguay said. “Our defence played really well but we lost it on the two other parts. We lost it on the offence and we lost it on the special teams. We can’t give up two special team fake punts. We know it, we practised it and we knew they were going to run it and we gave it up.
“It’s called mental mistakes and that’s the whole thing we have to get. We’re a very young team. We have 10 2005s but the rest are first year players.”
Duguay said he was proud of the defence as a whole.
“We had Noah Kugler, who had an interception, and our defensive line in the first half kept the run game down and put the pressure on the passing game and the linebackers were filling the holes,” he said.
Following a scoreless first quarter, the Mustangs opened the scoring when the Spears took a safety to go up 2-0. Later in the second quarter, London quarterback D.J. Fonti found a wide open Drake Logan for a touchdown to increase their lead to 9-0 with a convert by Julian Garces.
“The first quarter, first half it was 9-0 and we were playing really well,” Duguay said. “We had to give up a safety when we got pinned in our end and then they got a lazy touchdown on one of our players.”
The Mustangs took over in the second half with touchdowns by Andre Thompson and Logan, a field goal by Garces, two converts and another safety.
“I thought we were doing really well. We didn’t come out the way we did in our scrimmage against Hamilton. First half we did, second half we didn’t play like we were supposed to,”Duguay lamented. “When people are taking themselves off specials or we had too many or not enough, you can’t win games when you have a brain fart like that,”
Niagara quarterback Matt Murray had a tough night hooking up with his receivers and was ready to take the blame.
“I have to hit the receivers. There were a lot of passes that were close but I didn’t hit them, so that’s on me,” Murray said. “They played better than us, that’s it.”
Duguay wasn’t going to throw Murray, who displayed a strong arm, under the bus on a night when so much else also wasn’t up to par.
“He can throw the ball. It was like we were missing by a yard, a half yard and there was a couple times it was way over their heads.
“He has a good future and he did real well tonight. You can’t take the whole loss on him.”
The Spears are in Essex May 25 and back home Saturday, June 1 versus Cornwall at 7:30 p.m. at Notre Dame.
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