Sunday night’s thrilling Ravens’ football home opener was a game that that will not be forgotten any time soon.
The Ravens upset the Western Mustangs by a score of 38-31 at MNP Park on Sept. 3 in front of an estimated crowd of 5,000 fans.
“It was more resiliency than anything, there were times when we really wanted to pack it in when a guy would just steam roll us,” said Ravens head coach Steve Sumarah.
“But a guy would make the play when we needed it and I think that was the biggest thing,” he said. “There’s always adjustments throughout the course of a game but at the end of the day our guys went after it.”
Carleton entered the game ranked ninth in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), while Western was seeded fourth following a 78-6 thrashing of the Windsor Lancers in the opening week of the season.
While Western’s defence did not allow a single touchdown in their season opener, it only took the Ravens 88 seconds to break through and score their first touchdown of the night.
Defensive back Tunde Adeleke took a punt return and raced down the field for 85 yards to reach the end zone.
Kicker Mike Domagala tacked on the extra point to give the Ravens a 7-0 lead early in the game.
The Ravens’ offence then thrived in the second quarter. Carleton earned three points early in the quarter from a team safety and a rouge point, while running back Jayde Rowe added two touchdowns to give the team a commanding 24-0 lead.
The Mustangs began to generate momentum while closing the second quarter, scoring twice in less than four minutes.
At halftime, the Ravens continued to lead the game by a score of 24-14.
The Mustangs seemed to pick up right where they left off once the third quarter began. They scored a touchdown and field goal to tie the game at 24 with one final quarter to go.
A minute into the fourth quarter, the Mustangs added another touchdown to give themselves a 31-24 lead—their first lead of the night.
Rather than backing down after surrendering a 24 point lead, the Ravens proved to be resilient and worked their way back into the contest.
“I feel like in year one or two we would have been down on ourselves,” said Ravens quarterback Jesse Mills. “But now we’re at the time when we know we can compete so all we do is hunker down and do what we do.”
The Ravens rallied, and Mills connected a 15-yard pass to Nate Behar to tie the game with 5:43 remaining on the clock, then sent a 12-yard pass to Wilson Birch with 2:45 to go, giving the Ravens a 38-31 lead.
Western made a final attempt at tying the game by starting on their own 17-yard line and pushing the Ravens’ defence all the way to their three-yard line before being held firmly in place while the clock ran out.
Following the game, Sumarah praised the resiliency of his team.
“We showed lots of character tonight and a lot of fight and I’m really proud of my guys for that because after last week I wasn’t sure what we had in us, but we dug deep today,” he said.
“I think the biggest thing was we called ourselves out,” he said. “After last week we were sort of feeling sorry for ourselves, maybe we’re not this good, but we just had to go out and perform.”
