Manitoba rebounds on day three, defeating NB in the 7th place game

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Photo credit: James Hajjar

Manitoba defeated New Brunswick 48-7, capturing 7^th place on Sunday July 19 at the 2015 Football Canada Cup from Cégep Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu’s Alphonse-Desjardins Stadium in Quebec.

On the game’s first possession, New Brunswick looked to have their offense clicking as a 17-yard scramble by quarterback David Patry gave them a fresh set of downs near midfield. The Manitoba defence was quick to answer as they brought pressure, forcing and recovering a NB fumble at their opponent’s 45-yard line. A 40-yard Trevor Wright rush would give ’Toba a first and goal at the 1-yard line. Wright would take it in to give Manitoba an early lead. New Brunswick minimized the damage to six as they blocked the extra-point attempt.

A 23-yard Joshua Weichel run would increase the Manitoba lead to 13.

The Manitoba defence continued to give NB issues as they got to punter Louis Auger before he could get off the kick, giving them a short field at the 25. Trevor Wright would add his second touchdown run, making the score 20-0.

Following the score, New Brunswick would reply with authority as quarterback Evan Arnold threw a great ball with touch to Ian Carty who made an over the shoulder grab and took it to the house for an 89-yard touchdown.

NB continued to rebound, recovering a Manitoba fumble near their opponent’s 40-yard line. Facing  third down and goal, New Brunswick elected to go for it however a procedure penalty backed them up to the 6-yard line. Following the penalty they were unable to convert the turnover into points as quarterback Evan Arnold was unable to handle the snap, ending the drive.

To widen the margin 41-7 heading into halftime, Trevor Wright added his third touchdown of the game from 20-yards out while receiver turned quarterback Tommy Semchyshyn added a pair of touchdown passes to Josh Newransky and Liam Grace respectively.

Manitoba would add a Branden Friesen touchdown run to make the final score 48-7.

QUOTES:

“I was really happy with the way our younger players stepped up and in particular Chase Ellingson who was playing our shifting corner with their offensive player of the game, #88 [Ian Carty]. Chase moved on [to cover Carty after his touchdown] and really shut him down after that and just had a very stellar game out on that island for us. Same with Shae Weekes playing at safety. He came up on a couple of big plays for us at the end of the game. There’s a lot of youth on this team and a lot of youth in this tournament. It’s going to be very exciting to see them next year.”

On forcing a fumble early on in the game

“Speaking of our youth, Brody Williams playing middle linebacker for us, he’s another kid with potentially another year in the tournament for us. He came up and had as nice a tackle and strip as I’ve seen at any level.”

“Our young contributors as I look around at the offense, we had Brandon Friesen out of Portage [la Prairie] had a touchdown late in the game. He’s another young player for us. There’s a lot of players on this team that I want to see come back and make some noise.”

-Dan Washnuk, Manitoba Head Coach

On today’s game

“Can’t spot them 20 points and we can’t go 2-and-out our first four drives. We’ve got a resilient group that started to rebound. They learned a lot about themselves in a three-game tournament where you play three games in a week. This is a whole new experience for our kids. I think overall, we’ve taken a step forward this week as a province. We continue to commit to improving our culture and improving our team at the national level. I think that we’ve showcased some exceptional athletes to next level recruiters. We’ve showcased some exceptional coaching but just sometimes the depth isn’t there for the smaller provinces. I’m extremely proud of my kids; we’ve got an absolutely character group and they knew from day one that they were just going to be committed to football and committed to making a statement every time they stepped on the field. It was just an unfortunate result for our guys.”

On the long touchdown

“That’s who we are and that’s [the kind of potential] we’ve seen throughout training camp. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to showcase it as much throughout this tournament. That’s one of our top receivers in our province from one of our top quarterbacks and that’s a quarterback that’s going to be back next year that we’re extremely excited about. We’ve got 18 guys returning [potentially]. This has been an awesome learning experience for our guys. That [touchdown pass] is just an example of what’s to come for football in New Brunswick.”

-Chris Hopkins, New Brunswick Head Coach

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