Maracle, Asselin, Eric Cumberbatch all left the game with apparent injuries
For the second week in a row, a Cumberbatch twin scored the first touchdown of the game for the Gee-Gees. This time, it was Patrick who grabbed the interception, in the second quarter of Saturday’s game against the Queen’s Gaels, and took it to the house. Eric would follow up with an interception which led to a field goal on the very next drive.
“You gotta make plays when the opportunity is there, give a boost to our offence, give them some hope, and do whatever you can for the team,” said Patrick after the game. “It’s always fun, but the most important part is to help the team out, [to] do our best, do whatever we can.”
Unfortunately, that was just about where the positives ended for the Gee-Gees, who were returning to Gee-Gees Field for the first time since their first-round playoff win over Windsor in 2022.
On the Gee-Gees very first drive of the game, quarterback Ben Maracle found receiver Maxim Malenfant up the middle for 28 yards, and along with some chunks by running back Charles Asselin, they found themselves in field goal territory, 45 yards away from the uprights.
Kicker Zachary Copeland would miss the field goal just wide right, and Gaels kick returner Iain St. Arnault would return it 117 yards the other way for his third kick-return touchdown of at least 115 yards in the last two weeks. The Gee-Gees would never get the score gap back down to a single touchdown after that.
Eric Cumberbatch would leave the game with a lower-body injury shortly after his interception, along with running back Charles Asselin, who took repeated heavy hits throughout the day from a Gaels line head coach Marcel Bellefeuille referred to postgame as “maybe one of the best in the country.”
Near the end of the second quarter, quarterback Ben Maracle would try to scramble out of the pocket for a few yards but be met by linebacker Justin Pace, who drilled the veteran with a helmet-to-helmet hit as he was sliding, resulting in a 20-yard unnecessary roughness penalty.
Maracle would ultimately find tight-end Scott Fulton for a 21-yard passing touchdown on the drive, but leave in the third quarter after being drilled again in the process of throwing a pick-six. The Gee’s had cut the lead to 31-20 before the interception, but Queens would run away with it from there and tack on 17 more points.
“They’re all huge pieces,” said head coach Marcel Bellefeuille when asked what any of those players being out for any length of time would mean for the team. “We feel like we have a deep team, but they’re all really big pieces. Any time you lose any guys of that quality it’s going to affect your level of play — but we’ll adjust and have a ‘next man up’ mentality.”
Looking at the box score, the Gee-Gees had just one less first down than the Gaels, 10 more passing yards, and nine less rushing yards. The offence played well, despite Maracle’s two interceptions, and so did the defence, highlighted by the Cumberbatch’s interceptions and pass breakups.
“At this level you can’t win without a championship level defence,” said Bellefeuille. “This isn’t the pros where you can [only have] one-side or the other side of the ball, you have to have a good defence … I’m happy with that group and how they’re playing … they’re giving us a chance every game.”
But it was the special teams errors — which also included Copeland dropping a snap while about to punt by the Gee’s endzone — that undoubtedly sunk the Gee-Gees. “The biggest thing for us was the points we gave up on special teams early in the game, we were playing from behind. The turnovers and the special teams play made things tough today,” acknowledged the veteran head coach.
“I’ve seen the opponent, and he’s in the mirror,” Bellefeuille quipped. “We have to conquer that first, and when we do, we’ll have a chance to be a really good football team.”
The Gee-Gees will travel to Windsor on Saturday for an important date with the 3-0 Lancers. Kickoff is at 4 p.m. on OUA.TV.
