The first chapter of a new era ended for the Carleton Ravens football team Oct. 19 with a 45-3 loss at home to the McMaster University Marauders.
The new squad’s first season was a tough grind, as they lost all eight of their games and were outscored 390-95 by their opponents in their first season in 15 years.
“Three more games would be fantastic,” Ravens head coach Steve Sumarah said. “I think it would give us an opportunity to keep building on these things—now we’ve got to wait nine months.”
It was a tough final opponent for the Ravens, as the playoff-hungry Marauders needed to win by a 14-point margin to secure a home game in the Ontario University Athletics post-season.
McMaster wasted no time in opening up that gap, going up 17-0 by the end of the first quarter, before running it up to a more-than-comfortable 31-0 cushion at the half.
“In all honesty, I thought the guys saw the end today a little bit,” Sumarah said. “[It felt like] we took more penalties today than we have all year. We were just a little undisciplined and a little sloppy, to be blunt.”
The Ravens struggled for field position all game, only getting a taste of the red zone once, resulting in a 14-yard field goal from first-year kicker/punter Andrew Banerjee to put the Ravens on the board.
Sumarah said the game was indicative of his goals for the team next year.
“I think the big one is consistency,” he said. “Tonight, we gave them short fields at times. Our punt coverage wasn’t great in the first half. And then the second half we did a really great job on it.”
“But you’ve got to do that for 60 minutes. If we can get our consistency down then it becomes more about us than it does them,” he said.
Ottawa-native quarterback Nick Gorgichuk started the final game for the Ravens, in his second straight start, and he remained positive about the team’s inaugural season.
“The coaches had always said don’t measure this season on wins and losses,” Gorgichuk said. “I think we gelled together as a team very quickly. Some of these teams have been playing together for three years, and we’ve been playing together for three months.”
Now, Sumarah and his team have a foundation to build off, and nine months to do it, before the Ravens hit the field for their second season in the fall of 2014.
“I’d do it again, and I love the challenge of doing it,” Sumarah said. “There are so many positive things out there and so many guys that, with some more experience, are going to be fantastic players.”
There was even a hint of next year’s roster dotting the sidelines in their game against the Marauders, as Sumarah had a few recruits looking on.
“Our goal is to get 20, maybe 25 recruits for next year, which is a far cry from the 80 that we brought in this past year,” Sumarah said. “We’re really trying to hand-pick who we’re bringing in and where they’re going to fit in with this group of guys.”
Sumarah said he was proud of the way his team played the season considering the circumstances, but acknowledged that next season the expectations will be a little higher.
“I think they definitely climb up,” he said. “There’s no question I knew what we were getting into this year.”
“But after spending a whole off-season with these guys and bringing in some more recruits for next year—absolutely the bar has to go up.”
